Nine Lives
by BeshterAngelus
Summary: The Doctor was doing well all by himself, thank you very much! And in popped this pink and yellow human, mucking about the place. Worse, she seems to worm herself into the Doctor's lonely existence rather comfortably...perhaps too comfortably. Character study of Nine and his relationship to Rose Tyler.
1. A Little Fire Between Friends

AN: This has percolated in my computer for a while. I am still working on it, but needed a bit of a break from my "Seasons" X-files fic and decided to throw this out there. Enjoy!

* * *

Bugger all if his shoulder didn't hurt.

The doors of the TARDIS slammed shut behind him as he practically fell inside, his key still clutched against his frantically beating hearts. Not the first close shave he'd had in his exceedingly long life, but certainly one of the nearest. He could practically feel the razor burn as he stumbled up off the metal grating, his leather boots digging as he threw himself towards the console.

"Got to get us out of here, old girl, before they start bringing out the torches and pitchforks." He muttered more to himself than the ship; though he could sense the presence of the TARDIS grow alarmed, not just at the growing crowd of agitated townsfolk preparing to beat down her door, but at the battered state of her owner, looking as if he had barely made it out of a nice burning at the stake.

Which of course is exactly what had happened, he informed her quietly, and no he didn't wish to discuss it.

"All my fault, really," he muttered. "I should have caught on that they would have reacted that way the minute they dropped the word 'witch'." How was he supposed to know that the peaceful planet of Paceium was in fact a backwoods little hellhole where a sonic screwdriver would cause a riot? Even as he glanced at the screen to the view outside, he could see the crowds gathering, shouting epitaphs in their native tongue basically to the effect that he was a demon sent by the gods to corrupt them with magic.

"Right, well, so much for living the life of adventure," he sighed, jamming coordinates in to somewhere, anywhere, he didn't care where, as long as it wasn't where he and the TARDIS were sitting right at that moment. Already he could hear the ominous sounds of breaking branches and a quick check on the view outside confirmed his suspicion. They were dragging trees over, whether to batter down the door or try to carry him off, he didn't know. He doubted they could get through the force field, but tipping over the TARDIS…that they might just do.

"Think you can get us out of here," he whispered, pulling levers and jamming buttons as the all too familiar, whining, grinding sound of his ancient machine coming to life filled the console room. Outside the milling crowd stopped and began screaming, horrified by the flashing blue light and the strange, deafening noise. He chuckled, as before their eyes his blue police box seemed to melt into nothingness.

"Right," he finally breathed as around him the TARDIS hummed with the sound of the Vortex. It took the edge off of his frantic energy as he found himself dropping heavily into the jump seat nearby, his shoulder aching with the impact. He reached long fingers to massage it under his leather coat, which of course now smelled liked burnt and singed Time Lord. Gah!

Another lovely day, the Doctor thought to himself dryly, resting his head back as he grimaced at the pain. He'd had to dislocate his shoulder just to get it around enough to wiggle his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. That had been the worst bit, trying to manage that as the flames of the fire roared to life around him, the cheers of the Paceiumi ringing into the night as they tried to burn out their much-feared "witch". Really, he couldn't fault them for their reaction, when he thought about it. He doubted the purple-skinned creatures had ever seen anything more advanced that a mortar and pestle in their civilization. And here he was, the great and mighty Time Lord, showing up with a flying hut and holding light in the palm of his hand. He hadn't been thinking, really, he'd just wanted to go there to check out a bit of the local culture, to go to a place that was quiet and peaceful, without any technology that was blowing up or people that needed saving. That was what he got for thinking that even a renegade Time Lord could ever have a moment's quiet to himself.

The TARDIS tried to hum sympathetically, but really he wasn't in the mood.

"Not now," he sighed, feeling the joint of his shoulder pop back into place as he shifted it, the muscles aching as they relaxed into their proper position. Since his regeneration into this hard, angular, angry form, his ship had felt the need to mollycoddle him. And he usually wasn't up for it.

"Take us somewhere…anywhere, I don't care." He waved a hand in the general direction of the console. He thought for a moment. "Someplace a little less primitive. But nothing too advanced, I'm not fit for that." Frankly he had no idea what he was in the mood for. All he knew was that he wanted to be…somewhere. He needed to feel a world beneath his feet, to feel people around him, to feel life.

Something to fill this cold void inside.

The TARDIS hummed and whined, her engines groaning as she shifted course in time and space, and the Doctor closed his eyes, allowing his ship to do the choosing. Really, what was the purpose of having an aware ship if it couldn't make the decisions for him once in a while? He was tired of making choices, of having to consider and weigh the options. Which would be the lesser evil, a balmy place or a cold one, pasta or curry, beer or wine, let everyone and everything he had ever known die or let the universe crumble into chaos and extinction.

Running, running, catch me if you can. He was always running, trying to outrun those decisions, those consequences, and those painful memories. He had no home, he had no people, and he had no establishment to rebel against anymore. Funny how he had spent so much of his life running from something and now that it was all gone he couldn't seem to make himself stop.

Stop…that was what the engines did as his eyes popped open to the suddenly silent TARDIS, feeling that the ship had physically come to a standstill, even if the world in which she had landed on had not. He leaned curiously forward to glance at the readouts as to where they were, wondering just where the old girl had decided to deposit them.

"Earth….again?" He tapped at the screen just to make sure it was right. "Twenty first century, eh? What's so interesting about all of that?"

Of course the TARDIS couldn't directly respond, but his screen did flash, symbols from a now long-dead language scrolling across it rapidly.

"You're kidding?" Well that was a surprise. "How did the Nestene Consciousness end up here again? I thought we had managed to get them all the last time."

Clearly they hadn't, as the TARDIS readings indicated that there they were somewhere in London. Well, he hadn't dealt with Autons or the Nestene in a while, it was certainly better than being tied up and roasted like a suckling pig.

"Right, we got any anti-plastic about," he wondered as he tried to recall where he had put it last.


	2. New Faces and Old Enemies

Of course the chief electrician was dead, poor sot. The Doctor grimaced as he bent over the human, middle aged, overweight, the sort of regular man who came to work at his silly department store, just figuring he would keep the lights on and the elevators running and not be bothered. Likely had a wife somewhere, maybe a kid or two, and a liking for too much beer and football down at the pub. The sort that didn't go to work and expect he'd have his head mashed in by a faceless mannequin.

Why this store, though, and why this electrician? Henrik's was one of those annoying shops that catered to the younger set, the sort of twenty-first century fashion that made the Doctor wonder if they wearer meant to look as if they had just rolled out of bed in whatever they had fallen into in. The idea of paying seventy-five quid for a raggedy hoody? Fashion sensibilities aside, this Henrik's store had a lot of things going for it that the Nestene could use to their advantage. It was an old building, lot of metal girders, great for picking up signals. Mannequins galore, enough to get a small army together, a faceless, expressionless militia of tattily dressed thugs to wander the city. And that was the last key to why this location. Right in the heart of one of London's shopping districts, the perfect place to launch an Auton attack if the Nestene wanted.

In the floors up above he could hear the sounds of the store winding down, the announcement over the loudspeakers the store was closing. Good, the place would clear out. That was convenient. He patted the device deep in his giant leather coat pockets. If he could strategically place this up on the roof it would cut the signal for this block at least. Dangerous, yes, and certainly destructive, but far better than allowing an Auton army to rampage through the streets of London, besides it would buy him time to find the consciousness itself. All he had to do was wait for the customers and staff to clear, do a final sweep through the building to rid it of any security lingering about, and jump back into the TARDIS and be on his way. Simple as that.

With all of his nine hundred years of experience he should have known it would never be that easy. Above the floors that housed the store was office space, mostly professionals, doctors, lawyers, a dentist, all closed by the time he had wandered down to the basement to find the chief electrician. He had taken off to check out the roof access, ears pitched to listen for the last employees to file out before he made his way upstairs. The door to the stairwell was locked, unsurprising as he doubted the owners of the building were terribly keen on random people wandering up there. The dead bolt was solid as he tried to pull on the heavy, steel door. Not a problem. Out came his sonic screwdriver, a bit of jiggle and finding the right setting, and he could have the dead bolt open in just a jiff…

The high, clear voice of a young woman calling out in the background made both his hearts stop. Damn! He turned to the noise automatically, his hearts stopping. The store was supposed to be closing, and some girl was mucking about. He paused, considering. He could just leave whoever was stupid enough to come wandering down there that time of the night, go plant his device and fetch them on the way out again. But he had no idea if the Autons were up and restless. They'd killed the engineer. Likely they would kill her too.

He had plenty enough deaths lying on his conscience, thank you very much, including a now dead chief electrician. Didn't need to add to the list. With a muttered vulgarity in some language that he was certain hadn't ever been heard on Earth, he ran for the sound of the girl's increasingly panicked cries, hoping that he didn't get to her too late.

He snuck in through the fire doors into the main basement, scanning the dim area with sharp eyes. He caught sight of her crouched against one of the far walls, a single blonde head in a forest of white, faceless plastic ones. Creepy buggers, Autons, single-minded in their focus, like early robots following simple binary commands in cheap, plastic bodies. The ability to multi-task wasn't exactly one of their strong suits. So it wasn't particularly difficult for him to squeeze around the mass of them as they surrounded her. She stood terrified, face screwed up as if prepared for the worst.

He simply reached out and grabbed her hand.

The girl jerked, eyes snapping open to him as his fingers touched hers, and he gave her one single command. "Run!"

She didn't think, she didn't hesitate; she simply did as he told her, and held on to his hand for dear life.

He banged through the fire exit; the heavy doors clattering open as the girl followed behind him, running for all she was worth. On their tail he could hear the disturbing, inhuman sound of plastic shuffling across the cement floor as the Autons gave chase. Plastic mannequins they might be, but they could move faster than they appeared to. His hand slammed on the button to the employee lift, the doors opening fast enough to allow him to nearly throw the girl in while he followed behind. Even then the fastest of the Autons caught up, and attempted to grab them through the closing, heavy steel doors.

To her credit the girl didn't scream at the wiggling, white arm reaching for the Doctor's face. He snagged it, giving it a yank, the arm popping easily off its metal post. The doors finished shutting as the elevator rose, well out of the danger of the Autons for now. Doubtful they could even figure out how to work the elevator enough to get up to them, but just in case…

"You pulled his arm off?" It was the girl, standing against the far wall, panting as she stared with wide, shocky golden brown eyes at the plastic appendage he still held.

Perceptive this one, "Yep," he grinned, tossing it at her blandly. She caught it, unsure of what to even do with it, but looking mildly disturbed. "Plastic."

Not that it was clearly any reassurance to her. "Very clever, nice trick!" She was sounding on the verge of hysterics now. The Doctor knew that reaction in humans well, particularly the female sort. Many of his companions had displayed it, that turn up in tone and pitch as their feeble, human brains finally wrapped around whatever concept challenged their singular world view. Show them something they weren't ready for, like a living, plastic arm, and a human was likely to lose all cognitive reasoning, if not bodily function.

"Who were they then," the girl demanded, waving the now still piece of plastic. "Students? Is this a student thing or what?"

Really, did humans just look for the most obtuse answer on purpose? "Why would they be students?" What sort of students dressed themselves up in plastic just to scare a shop girl, anyway?

"I don't know," she admitted honestly, but vaguely.

"Well you said it, why students?" Honestly, she had to have a reason. Did university students dress themselves up in plastic and go muck about in town in twenty-first century London?

"Cause," the girl replied defensively. "To get that many people dressed up and being silly, they got to be students."

Apparently university students did dress up in plastic and run around in twenty-first century London. What a horrible thing to do! Oh well, at least the logic of her argument made sense, and certainly every university student he knew about on all the various worlds and in all the various time periods loved to pull stupid pranks to scare the locals. At least the girl had enough sense to reason it out before she lost her head. Shows she at least didn't drop all cognitive reasoning in the face of danger. Looks like she had a bit of a head on her shoulders. The Doctor grinned at her, impressed.

"That makes sense, well done!"

"Thanks," she flushed; relieved she at least now understood what was going on. Pity he would have to dissuade her of that.

"Their not students," he admitted. He hated blowing up her happy, safe little ball of perfectly reasonable logic but he did, popping that balloon with only a little regret. Time to expand this girl's realm of understanding.

She didn't look as if she believed him, which wasn't the first time a human had given him that look. "Whoever they are, when Wilson finds them he's gonna call the police."

"Who's Wilson?" He doubted this Wilson would know how to deal with Autons any better than this girl did.

"Chief electrician," she supplied.

Oh…him. Clearly she hadn't found the body. "Wilson's dead."

Perhaps he shouldn't have dropped it on her so matter-of-factly like that. Her mouth dropped as the elevator doors opened and she was almost too stunned for a moment to follow him. He forgot sometimes other people weren't as used to death and dying as he was. Had this girl ever even seen a dead body? Somehow he doubted it.

"Who are you, then," she shrieked after him, in that way human's had when they were trying to make sense of something they didn't believe could happen. "Who's that lot down there?"

He could answer her, but what was the point. She was a girl, a kid, little more than a human teenager, who likely got a job at this place selling clothes because she didn't have anywhere else to go. She came to work everyday, did her job, and went home to her boyfriend and her telly without ever thinking that there was something else out there, other possibilities, that there were worlds where plastic was living and consciousness could be shared across wavelength signals.

"I said who are they," she demanded louder, her voice ringing off the concrete corridors. He should just pat her on the head and send her on her way, tell her to be a good girl, have a nice life, and run like hell. Instead he stopped and confronted her, the girl with the dyed blonde hair and the large, cinnamon sugar eyes.

"They're made of plastic," he reiterated. "Living plastic creatures. They're being controlled by a relay device on the roof, which would be a great big problem if I didn't have this!"

With a flourish he reached into the transdimensional pockets of his leather coat, easily snagging the explosive device he had slipped in there earlier. She frowned at it quizzically as he continued, opening the exit doors that led them to the service entrance behind the store.

"So, I'm going to go up there and blow them up! And I might well die in the process!" He could die, he theorized, it was a possibility. But then almost all of his adventures in this current incarnation seemed to always possess the vague threat of his demise. If he were a psychologist he would say it was survivors guilt, the need to put himself in as much danger as possible to make up for all of those he lost. But then, he never did put much stock in psychologists; all were a load of nutters anyway.

"But don't worry about me, no!" He bustled the girl out of the door, despite her confused protests as she clutched the white, plastic arm to her. "Go home, go on! Go and have your lovely beans on toast!"

The girl stuttered and spluttered as she stumbled backwards into the alley, clearly at a loss as to how to respond to any of this. He had to get her out of here and quickly if he wanted to get the job done before the Autons made it up the stairs and out the front of the glass windowed store.

"Don't tell anyone about this," he cautioned flippantly, already calculating which route to the roof would get him there most quickly. "Because if you do, you'll get them killed."

With that, he shut the heavy door on the girl's pretty but bemused face.

Which stairway should he try, the one at the north end or the south? North was closest, but then had that dodgy bit in the middle by the dentist office. South was a straight shot, but it was the one that led directly to the basement and might be filled with Autons now. He should have made sure to close that one route back off before he ran to grab…what was her name again? Perhaps he should have asked.

He jerked open the door again, finding her still standing there, as if trying to sort out if she should run or call the police. "I'm the Doctor, by the way," he offered with a manic grin by way of greeting. "What's yours?"

"Rose," she replied simply, clearly at a loss as to why he was even asking.

"Nice to meet you, Rose." Such a lovely name. "Now, run for your life!"

He slammed the door shut again; seriously hoping the girl took his advice. Rose…yes, a very lovely name.

How fast could he make it up the steps again?


	3. A Rose By Any Other Name

He awoke to the sound of fire sirens wailing into the night.

The air was filled with the scent of acrid smoke, as high above it plumes of white spray rained down on the mess that had been Henrik's. He blinked, eyes gritty with ash as he sat up from where he had fallen…where had he fallen? He took stock of his situation. Cold asphalt, the scent of stale wrappers and rotting vegetables, not to mention human urine, under the heady cloud of smoke, a chain link fence, and a fire escape that led to the top of the burning building.

Well, he had nearly made it out of the way before the explosion. Like as not the impact had sent him careening over the edge of the metal framework to the back alley below, with its trash bin and little else. Right, well, he seemed to be all right, save for his blasted right shoulder. That one protested, still not completely healed from his "escaping the barbecue" incident.

Another fine day's work done, then, right? He pulled himself off of what he sincerely hoped was a bag of garbage and not something else more disgusting, and stumbled off into the growing darkness, avoiding the swelling chaos that was beginning to surround what had once been a clothing store and office building. Already police had blocked off all the streets surrounding the block, and people gathered around the steel frame barricades, eyes wide as they stared up at the carnage in front of them. Humans always did like a good show, especially when it involved death and destruction in the abstract. When it involved them personally they were never nearly quite as amused. The Doctor had never seen a race more preoccupied with death and dying than humans…with the possible exception of the inhabitance of Selucis Seven, who fit you out for a coffin as a rite of initiation into adulthood. He supposed the idea was that it had to happen someday.

Frankly he had seen his fill of enough death and dying to last one lifetime let alone nine of them. Grimly he wended his way through the gawking crowds towards the solitary, blue police box hiding in the shadows around a lonely corner. No one noticed it sitting there, and that was the way he liked it. Cradling his right arm close, he clumsily reached for his TARDIS key, letting himself into the pleasant hum of his ship.

He collapsed into the jump seat gratefully, rubbing his shoulder, feeling disgust at the smell of smoke that seemed to cling to his clothes. It reminded him too painfully of another time, one that felt like just yesterday for all that it happened ages ago. He grunted as he reached across to the computer monitor, flicked a few symbols with one long finger, and watched as the news feed came up live on his screen.

Gas leak…suspected terrorist attack…he snorted, giggling maniacally at the reporter on the BBC. Really, humans were so oblivious. And that was why he liked them, he supposed. They never got hung up on the possibilities of what might be. They lived for the moment, humans, only concerned about their telly and their movie stars, their sporting events, and their politics. And when they bothered to think about things other than chips and gossip, when the universe threatened to slap them in the face with the force of its own existence, they always acted like it was the biggest surprise. For them it was. Life was always an adventure for humans, something to be taken by the horns, to be conquered.

He couldn't say that for many races…certainly not his own.

Like that human girl, he mused, the one he drug out of the building, Rose. All she had done that day was go down the basement, like any rational personal would do at closing time, in the dark, all alone, by herself. She like as not had ever heard of the Nestene, or Autons, never even seen anything like it before. That's why she thought they were students playing a prank. And yet when she was faced with an untimely death at the hands of some faceless mannequin, she had taken his hand and simply trusted him. Hadn't thought about it, hadn't given it a second turn, just ran. She was rather brilliant in that. Smart too, for a human. Sure, she had gotten it wrong about the students, but it was a logical explanation for a situation she had utterly no point of reference for. She tried, at least, to understand. Most other people would have been having hysterical, jabbering fits by that point.

Rose…

The universe seemed to like having a joke on him now and again, he realized. Rose…that had been another young girl's name once. She had been about the same age in Time Lord years, nothing more than a slip of dark hair and fire, in love with all things human, from their music to their fashion. He'd never known much about humans, the strange little race of beings on the tiny little rock called the Earth. He'd always been more interested in the more cultured and educated places in the universe, the sort that bored a young lady like her to tears. She had wanted to go to the Earth because it was adventurous and fun, it was different, because the humans knew how to live life. And so he had agreed, because he loved her, adored her really, and he couldn't really bring himself to tell her no. He had come to love this planet too, through her eyes. He had come to care for its strange, weird, pink little humans, who looked so much like Gallifreyans did but were so different. He had even taken on Ian and Barbara and later others, dragging humans into his adventures again and again. All because one young woman named Rose had wrapped him totally and completely around her fingers.

Of course she had stopped going by Rose by that time, because Time Lords never used their real names anyway. She was clever, like he was, and as a lover of all things human chose a human name, a sideways reference to her own…Susan. He had tried to point out that technically Shoshanna could mean "lily" as much as "rose", but she liked it because it was sensible. It was the name she carried with him through time and space. That was the name she still carried when he left her so long ago.

Had she made it through the darkness, through the blood, and terror, and war? He hoped she had, she and her children. But he somehow could sense that she hadn't. He had no idea if it was the Time War that took her or something else. But in the whole of the known universe he knew she was gone, like they all were. The comfortable press of so many other consciousnesses like his own were now gone from reality, leaving a vacuum behind.

He suddenly felt very cold.

Speaking of consciousness, he blinked back at the screen, at the unfolding damage just outside of his door. Likely they would get it all out in a bit, and the plastic inside would be melted too far for him to get a good sample for tracking purposes. He needed to find the Nestene while he had the advantage. No one knew he was there, that he was responsible, that he was even alive. He reached an aching arm across to prod at the screen, to trace the signal and where it was coming from. So far as he could tell there was nothing. He'd likely scared them the minute he set off the bomb, and he doubted the Nestene would try anything else for the rest of the night. The main consciousness would likely regroup for now, trying to figure out what went wrong, and come back at it later.

He stared at the screen, waiting for something to kick up, as he knew it would with the Nestene. And he thought of his granddaughter, and of roses, and of a blonde girl who somewhere out there was sleeping comfortable, believing this whole evening to be a bizarre, weird chapter of her perfectly normal, "beans-on-toast" sort of life.


	4. Bad Wolf

He should have somehow known that this would all come back to Rose. But he admitted to a certain amount of surprise as he peeked in the cat flap to the dingy little apartment and saw those warm, brown eyes frowning at him from the other side. And there was no way to play it cool once she opened the door and drug him inside, demanding answers out of him, especially not with her mother making eyes at him from out of her boudoir. Really, he was a perfect stranger, he could be some psychotic axe wielder and the woman was trying to make a pass at him.

As disturbing as it was his ego couldn't help but preen just slightly at that. Clearly he still had something that drew the female types to him, despite the big ears and funny nose. Now if only he could convince one certain young lady that she needed to stay away from him, far away from him.

Rose ran after him, stupid plastic arm still in hand. It hadn't fazed her that it came to life and had nearly suffocated her, instead it only fueled the barrage of questions that she peppered him with as she trailed behind him. Even the honest truth about what she was facing, an alien attack on her home world, didn't seem to convince her. She simply glared at him, hands stuffed in her hoody, as if she had any, bloody idea what was coming if he didn't find the Nestene.

A part of him wanted to tell her that she was a foolish child and to stay out of it. Another part of him found her amazingly brilliant, this girl who dared to throw herself into something that by rights was far more dangerous than she should. It would be so easy to let her tag along, he knew that, how many companions had he allowed into his life that way? It was so…tempting.

But he knew as she stared at his retreating figure, demanding to know who he was and why he was doing all of this, that he couldn't do it. Not to this slip of a girl who was all eyes and overdone make up. He turned to her, away from his TARDIS in the distance. Rose Tyler, so confident that she could understand even half of the situation she was getting into.

"Do you know, like we were saying? About the Earth revolving?"

She nodded carefully, curious as he began to cross the space between them, the sunshine bright off of her fake, blonde hair.

"It's like when you were a kid," he continued, vaguely recalling such a period, when he stood in a hill overlooking a sea of rolling red grass at his feet. "The first time they tell you the world's turning and you can't quite believe it because everything looks like it is standing still."

He paused in front of her, the breeze picking up around them as she shivered ever so slightly against it.

"I can feel it," he whispered, reaching for her hand once again. Her fingers were warm against his cool ones, grasping instinctively, not even jerking away at the surprise contact. In that instant he could feel her, her life, her essence, and that of the entire planet through her as it spun and twisted in the void of space around it's golden, yellow sun.

"The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour. The entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour, and I can feel it." His twin hearts raced as he allowed his senses to reach out across reality, through time and space, to feel the rush of the Earth beneath them, like the wind that played right now across his face.

"We're falling through space, you and me," he murmured, his fingers tightening around hers briefly. "Clinging to the skin of this tiny world and if we let go…."

Something rose unbidden into his awareness, primal and ageless. It was both familiar and strange, comforting and terrifying, and it caused his hearts to stutter in their pace, as his consciousness shied away from whatever it was and shrank back into himself, not quiet frightened but certainly confused. He was torn from his link to time and space itself, his eyes snapping open as he let go of the girl's hand abruptly, something ragged and unsettling clawing inside of his head.

Where had that come from, he wondered dazedly as he met Rose's wide-eyed gaze.

"That's who I am." he said simply, sadly, his skin itching as he tried to understand what just happened. "Now forget me, Rose Tyler."

He snagged the former Auton's plastic arm and waved it in front of her nose. "Go home," he ordered again, turning on her with the thing tucked under his arm. He didn't look back as he opened the TARDIS and stepped inside.

What the hell was that?

On automatic he stumbled to the console, leaving the plastic arm on top to hang drunkenly off one of the levers. It might be useful, perhaps, for tracking down the signal, but seeing as it was dead now, he doubted that. He shifted to his monitor, the TARDIS humming as he began typing into the screen the Gallifreyan words for the thing that had torn into his mind.

He waited for the TARDIS' computer to come up with an explanation for "bad wolf".

Never before had he encountered anything like what he felt. It was ageless and timeless and so personal. As if time could form an entity, and that entity had reached out to him and touched his brain. It made him shiver as he thought of it, wondering what in the universe could have that effect? Perhaps a telepathic race, perhaps something elemental? Was there something in the volumes of Time Lord lore stashed in the one, surviving TARDIS in the universe that could explain it?

To his disappointment all the TARDIS turned up was a Gallifreyan dictionary reference for the separate terms of "bad" and "wolf", complete with translations in several thousand languages. In frustration he flipped through the screens, only turning up pictures of wolves native to Earth and to several hundred other planets that humans eventually colonize and take the endangered animals with them. Far from helpful.

What was that…thing? He tried to think, to find out what was different that could have drawn such an entity to him. He was reaching into time and space, his Time Lord senses stretching across the fabric of the universe, like he had always been able to do. He was holding Rose's hand…was she the difference? Somehow he that didn't seem right. The girl was human and painfully normal. Nothing about her seemed to be spectacular enough to draw cosmic entities of time towards her. What was it? The Nestene?

Disturbed more than he wanted to even admit, he frowned at the plastic arm lying beside him. Whatever this "bad wolf" was, it didn't seem malevolent, at least not towards him. Terrifying, yes, but not threatening. For now he would have to leave it be if it wasn't a danger to him he needed to focus on the Nestene.

"Let's see if we can't find the signal out there somewhere, shall we," he muttered as his fingers danced across the screen. "We'll set up a filter to look through all the signals in the London area, and see if one peeks out all strange and funny." Considering the number of television, radio, and wireless signals out there it could take hours to filter through them all to find anything unusual. But it was the best idea he had at the moment, and it was better than sitting on his hands waiting for the Autons to strike yet again.

"Let me know if you turn up anything," he frowned to no one in particular, but talking to his ship nonetheless. "I'll see if I can't root around down below and boost the signal reading capabilities up a tic." He grabbed his rubber headed mallet and opened the grating at his feet, preparing to do battle.

"Shouldn't hurt more than a little bit."


	5. TARDIS

Pizza! When was the last time he had anything like that? The Doctor ignored the rumble in his stomach, reminding himself that superior, Time Lord biology only needed to eat a handful of times in a week. Of course he was fairly certain he had eaten less than that, considering how fluid time was for him and how he had the tendency to get wrapped up in things like Nestene, and forgetting things like eating. Still, the smell of garlic and baking bread did nothing to help his quickly deteriorating mood as he slipped into the restaurant through the kitchen. No one took much notice of him, and it always surprised him that humans so rarely did. After all, here's this tall, funny looking bloke in a leather jacket, he could have been a terrorist or a murderer. To some species that exactly what he was. But here, with humanity, they seemed blissfully ignorant.

Without much notice he slipped in behind the bar, scanning the restaurant quickly. It was some sort of trendy style for this time period in London, all open windows, glass, and chrome. A wood fire burned nearby in a brick oven, obviously where the pizzas were baked, and high-end liquor lined the shelves behind the bar. The restaurant was fairly populated, it was now late lunchtime, and in the middle of all the tables filled with murmuring customers sat…

He should have known.

Rose Tyler didn't seem to notice him standing there, but then he doubted she was paying attention to much of anything. She was prattling on, chatting animatedly to the plastic thing sitting in front of her, clearly unaware of the unnaturalness of her companion while she nattered about. How could she not notice? Had she looked at the poor bloke once? How could one human girl be so oblivious, he wondered, as he surreptitiously reached for an expensive looking bottle of champagne from behind the bar. Should be enough to cause a distraction at least, he thought, slipping up to the table as unobtrusively as one of the wait staff.

The Doctor wondered if Rose's companion was supposed to be dark skinned, and felt himself shiver at the unnatural ashiness of the Auton. Really, even his eyes didn't blink. How could she not notice this? But then the Auton was nearly as oblivious as Rose was, at least he was supposed to be that way. He decided to sidle up to the plastic creature first. "Your champagne?"

The Auton didn't bother looking at the giant, green glass bottle the Doctor shoved in his face. "We didn't order any." The creature's large hand reached out slammed down on the frail, pink one that was Rose's. She gasped, eyes large, as she finally seemed to be cottoning on she was in danger. Only took her sitting down at a table, wining and dining a plastic creature to catch on something was amiss. Maybe he should rethink the intelligence of this one.

With a sigh and a smile, he simply rounded the table to Rose's side, sticking the bottle in front of her face. "Your champagne."

She didn't bother looking at it either. "It's not ours," she waived him away, distracted. "Mickey what is it? What's wrong?"

"I need to find out how much you know, so where is he?"

"Doesn't anybody want this champagne," The Doctor lamented, giving it a good shake as the Auton's eyes finally locked onto his. It was only then that the plastic man showed any emotion beyond it's manic, psychopathic smile.

Well that cleared it up, the Nestene were on to him. He wondered what the tip off had been? The moving hand? Or perhaps the explosion had been too much. Surely the Nestene didn't recognize this face, but then maybe they had caught site of the TARDIS and put it all together. Well, for a plastic based, hive consciousness, he supposed they weren't altogether stupid, and they had plenty of experience with him before. Still, they could be incredibly thick. For all the time he was taking trying to unwire the cork on the bottle of champagne, the Auton didn't even budge. Made his forehead an easy target as the cork popped and sunk into the plastic skin.

That was just…disgusting.

Perhaps just as thick was Rose, who only finally caught on that something was amiss the moment the creature spit out the cork, smirking at the Doctor. She only just did scramble out of the way with a scream of horror as the Auton smashed into the table, hands turning into fleshy cricket bats as it began to swing madly at them. Well, that would never do. Without thinking, the Doctor made a grab for the creature's head, and with a quick turn and pull popped it off the neck of its body with a sound akin to the opening champagne bottle.

That's about when all hell broke loose in the restaurant.

He couldn't help but laugh at the situation. It was rather ridiculous. He was holding the leering head of the Auton, his body was roaming about the dining area, smashing things like something out of a surreal cartoon, and people were screaming, unsure of what to make of it. And there stood Rose, taking it all in, and in one moment lunged for the fire alarm, ordering everyone out of the establishment and away from the blind, destructive Auton.

She was rather brilliant after all, he thought smugly, as he tucked the Auton's head in his arm like a rugby ball and made for the kitchen, Rose right in front, screaming for everyone to get out. No sooner than they were out of the service entry did he have his sonic screwdriver out, locking the door behind them. He could hear banging and shouting on the other side, and knew the body would be following any second.

"Open the gate!" Rose, like any reasonable human he supposed, had looked for the most obvious exit. She had clearly missed the large, blue police box standing in the corner. She tugged at the giant, metal padlock on the fence and turned to him desperately. "Use that tube thing, come on!"

Tube thing? He frowned down at the instrument in his hand, insulted. "What, this? This is a sonic screwdriver."

She obviously didn't care if it were a sonic screwdriver or a tube thing. "Use it," she demanded, pulling on the fencing, looking perhaps for give somewhere in the links, or a way to climb up and over them before the plastic creature banging on the door broke through.

"Nah," the Doctor shook his head, coolly strolling over to his box, key in hand. "Tell you what, let's go in here."

Rose turned to stare at him frantically over her shoulder as if he were mad. He supposed he was about a great many things, but not this, thankfully. He shrugged, leaving her to it. She'd either come in or not, though he voted she would because where else was she going to go? Besides, he couldn't waste time trying to convince one bone-headed, oblivious human girl that it was perfectly safe to enter into a strange, blue police box that looked as if a stiff wind could knock it about, let alone a headless, plastic beast. He had to attach that creatures head to his scanners and see if he couldn't turn up a signal somewhere.

"We can't hide inside a wooden box," he heard her protest, rattling the gate. "It's going to get us! Doctor!"

Her cries finally gave into acceptance as he watched her on the monitor finally give in, running inside the doors, her steps coming up the ramp, than stopping abruptly.

One, two, three….

Rose turned on her heals and ran out the door.

It was to be expected, he supposed, sighing as he plugged wires into what had been the head of an Auton that had once been a man. A rather gormless looking one at that, was he a friend of Rose's? A boyfriend? The idea of him being a boyfriend seemed ridiculous, she seemed like a girl with better taste than that. Still, she was young, hadn't seen much of the world, and everyone was entitled to their youthful mistakes. He'd had a bad romance or three himself in younger days.

He waited for Rose to do obligatory circle around the ship outside, as she concluded that yes, indeed, the TARDIS was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. And he certainly hoped she realized that startling bit of quantum physics before she got bludgeoned to death. Thankfully she ran back inside just as the body made its way through the solid, metal door. No sooner had she closed the TARDIS doors behind her than he hit the button to send the TARDIS after the signal feeding to the Auton's head.

"It's going to follow us," she cried, breathless as she ran up the ramp.

"The assembled hoards of Genghis Khan couldn't get through that door, and believe me, they've tried." He didn't even look up from the head as he adjusted the wires. "Not shut up a minute."

She at least bothered to listen to him. He gave her credit for that. And the TARDIS seemed to be tracing the signal just fine, much better than it would have with the arm. "You see, the arm is too simple, but the head is perfect," he explained to the girl, still staring around her as if she had suddenly taken a tumble through the looking glass. "I can use it to trace the signal back to the original source."

"Right." He nodded, things were going, and now he would have to face the large, elephant in the room. Well, more like the small, petite, blonde girl with questions pouring out of her large, brown eyes. "Where do you want to start?"

Her gaze roved upwards, up the coral struts towards the depths of the dimly lit, cavernous ceiling, before rolling down the rotor towards the grating and the depths below. It was perhaps a good thing she couldn't see the other rooms beyond the console room…like the bedrooms, or the baths…or the library…the kitchen…the clothing room….the pool…

"The inside's bigger than the outside?"

"Yes," he replied simply, knowing there was more she wanted to ask.

"It's alien?"

"Yep," he affirmed quietly, his gaze not wavering from hers.

"Are you…alien?" The word fell off her full lips, almost as if she were embarrassed to ask.

"Yes," he replied, his hearts suddenly failing him in that moment. "Is that alright?"

Why should it bother him if it were all right or not? For whatever reason, it did. It mattered vitally that it was.

To his relief the girl nodded. "Yeah."

Good…that was good.

"It's called the TARDIS, this thing. T-A-R-D-I-S, that's Time and Relative Dimension in Space." His mini lecture prompted something of a small sob from the girl as finally the enormity of it all got to her. Ah well, was bound to happen sometime, even to the bravest. Frankly he was startled she had made it this far without fainting.

"That's okay. Culture shock, happens to the best of us," he tried to sooth her.

"Did they kill him," she blurted, her eyes suddenly streaming as she stared towards the plastic head on the consol. "Mickey? Did they kill Mickey? Is he dead?"

Mickey? Who was Mickey? It took him a long moment to realize she meant the Auton creature, or rather the human that the Auton had copies. She would assume the worst. "Didn't think of that," he muttered aloud, immediately earning the girl's ire.

"He's my boyfriend! You pulled off his head! They copied him and you didn't even think?" Her eyes blazed amber fire at him, as he started to feel rather annoyed with this presumptuous girl who questioned his motivations. "And now you're just going to let him melt?"

Melt? What? He spun around just in time to see Mickey creatures face turn into mocha-colored sludge. "No! No, no, no, no!"

So close! So close to finding the signal and negotiating an end to all of this, and all this stupid girl could think of was her idiot boyfriend? He had been the one foolish enough to get himself caught and copied. It wasn't the Doctor's fault that he proved to be an idiot. And now his clone was melting all over his beautiful console, making a sticky mess, and leaving him without a signal.

He slammed buttons and pulled levers. If he was lucky, very lucky, he might just find it again.

"What are you doing," the girl demanded, querulous as he ignored her, eyes to the screen. The readout scrolled by in Gallifreyan, faster than any human eye could read it. They were getting something.

"Reviving the signal, it's fading," he barked, watching the stream of symbols till they petered out, stopping. "No…no, no, no, no…."

The TARDIS shook around them, Rose shooting nervous glances towards the pumping rotor, as the Doctor pleaded with his lovely, beautiful, wonderful machine to just go just a bit further.

"Almost there," he muttered. "Almost there!" The rotor slowed, the whirring sound dying in there ears. "Here we go!"

The engine stopped, the TARDIS humming somewhat apologetically as the Doctor made for the door. Rose watched him go, eyes the size of dinner plates as he strode outside. "You can't go out there! It's not safe!"

Perhaps he should have explained the entire space and dimension thing to her a bit more, he reasoned briefly as he scanned his surroundings. But frankly, he lacked the time, and he doubted she would get it anyway. Besides, wherever they were, it wasn't where they needed to be. He sighed, shoulders sagging under his large, leather coat, eyes skimming over the large, glassy expanse of the Thames at night. A jumble of swear words in a variety of languages stuttered to mind.

Somewhere behind him the girl, Rose, stumbled out and gasped.

"I lost the signal," he shot back by way of forlorn explanation. "I got so close!"

The fact his failure was hardly the think she noticed at all. "We've moved?" She spun on the spot, frowning. "Does it fly?"

Her lack of understanding of basic dimensional physics was starting to annoy him. "Disappears there, reappears here, you wouldn't understand."

His snippiness hardly fazed her, though. "But if we're somewhere else, what about the headless thing? It's still on the loose!"

"It melted with the head. Are you going on all night," he snapped, losing patience. She would be more concerned over the monster she could understand than the Nestene that she couldn't. Humans, always worried about the things they could see and never the things they couldn't, which is what got this planet into trouble again and again. Which speaking of, if he didn't find that signal soon….he had tracked it this far, perhaps if he could think, what in the area could be used as a transmitter. Something big enough to carry it across London…

"I'll have to tell his mother," Rose continued sadly, forlorn and oblivious to the current danger, still muttering about something else. The Doctor turned to her, confused.

"Mickey!" Fire flashed in the girl's dark eyes, disapproval creasing her full mouth as she glared at him. "I'll have to tell his mother he's dead, and you just went and forgot him, again!"

He rolled his eyes skyward. Really, she was carrying on about her boyfriend when the world was going to end at the hands of a plastic army if he didn't find the Nestene Consciousness soon? Of course, he could probably tell her that her boyfriend was likely not dead, only copied and being held somewhere, but then she'd likely want to go find him rather than stop all of this.

"You were right, you are alien," she sneered, turning heel and stomping away.

Okay, perhaps seeing her angry and disappointed in him did bother him, he thought, watching her charge off. Just a tiny bit. Enough to make his ever-present guilt sting at his ever present pride. Bollocks!

"Look," he called, exasperated. "If I did forget some kid called Mickey…"

The girl whirled on him, her hair a blonde blur. "Yeah, he's not a kid."

He ignored her. "It's because I'm trying to save the life of every stupid _ape_ blundering on the top of this planet, alright?"

That gave her righteous indignation pause. Her jaw set, her perfect, rosebud mouth hardening, but something akin to apology, or perhaps it was acceptance, flashed in her expression. "Alright," she muttered grudgingly.

"Yes, it is," he shot back. Why was he getting into an argument with this impossible child anyway?

Perhaps she was thinking the same thing as she shook her head, eyes darting to the lights on the other side of the wide river. "If you are an alien, then how come you should like you're from the North?"

Really, now she was questioning him? A small voice was asking why he was putting up with this he had a planet to save. But something made him humor the nosy, flighty, impossible girl.

"Lot's of planets have a North," he replied indignantly, crossing his arms defensively as he felt his ears turn ever the slightest bit pink. To be honest he had no idea why it was he sounded like he was from the North. Perhaps it was due to his perpetual anger and guilt, was that a very Northern thing?

Rose smirked but didn't press, instead studying the TARDIS behind him. "What's a police public call box?"

Right! She wouldn't know that, she was too young. She'd grown up with cell phones. He felt a bit more on even footing here, turning to his beloved ship. "It's a telephone box from the 1950's." He reached over to pat the wooden frame lovingly, grinning broadly as he remembered why it was his ship looked like that. "It's a disguise."

She shook her head and smiled, clearly thinking he was daft. "Okay, and this living plastic. What's it got against us?"

"Nothing, it loves you," the Doctor replied honestly, shrugging matter-of-factly. "You've got such a good planet. Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, perfect!" He sobered slightly as he regarded the girl. "Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. It's food stock was destroyed in the war, all it's protein plants rotted so Earth…dinner!"

Any other human likely would have been horrified to hear of their home being nothing more than a buffet for an alien race, but Rose seemed to take it surprisingly in stride. "Any way of stopping it," she asked firmly, not even blinking."

He had to admit, a small part of him was coming to like this Rose Tyler. Grinning madly he reached inside his coat, pulling out the tube of blue liquid, brandishing it in front of her. "Anti-plastic."

She frowned at the vial in the street light overhead. "Anti-plastic?"

"Anti-plastic," he repeated, figuring it was self-explanatory enough not to need to explain. "But first, I've got to find it. How can you hide something that big in a city this small?" He spun on the spot, frowning. Granted, in the grand scheme of human cities, London was giant, one of the larger ones on the planet, but in comparison to planet sized cities, which would suit the Nestene just perfectly…

"Hold on? Hide what?"

Oh yes, he hadn't explained that bit to her. "The transmitter! The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."

That part she got, the girl lived on her cell phone. She nodded, eyes searching the area behind him across the river. "What's it look like?"

"Like a transmitter," he replied in frustration. Shouldn't that be obvious? "Round and massive, slap bang in the middle of London."

He whirled around, frantically scanning for anything that resembled what he was looking for. "A huge, circular metal structure, like a dish."

He turned to Rose, mind racing. "Like a wheel, close to where we're standing." He shook his head, something like that should be so obvious. "Must be completely invisible."

Rose's eyes flickered behind him, her eyes widening over his right shoulder.

"What," he frowned. Had he missed something?

She nodded over his shoulder. He turned, but saw nothing of note. Tall buildings, Westminster bridge, a giant Ferris wheel…

"What," he pushed, turning back to her for an explanation. Annoyingly she simply stared at something over his shoulder. What was back there? Nothing dangerous, he'd looked already. No rift, no alien spaceship, no annoying bit of dandruff…well he hoped not dandruff, he didn't really have the hair for it this time, not like his last incarnation…

"What," he turned, exasperated as he glanced across the skyline again. "What is it? What?" But Rose's only reaction was to keep pointedly staring at whatever it is that caught her fancy. He turned around, wondering what in the hell he could be missing. Tall buildings, Westminster bridge, a large Ferris wheel…

A large Ferris wheel…the London Eye. Oh he really was thick…old and thick, how could he miss this? And this strip of a girl who didn't even understand the first thing about quantum or dimensional physics, who couldn't understand how the TARDIS even operated, had figured out what he was looking for with the blink of an eye. A wide, delighted grin crawled across his face, reaching from one big ear to the other.

"Oh," he breathed. It was obvious and yet so clever, the London Eye. So very clever, and he nearly had missed it, if not for one Rose Tyler. "Fantastic!"

His feet took off almost before he realized it, and close behind him ran the girl. He should have told her to stay put, that this was dangerous stuff, but even his common sense told him she'd probably not listen. She hadn't listened to him up to this point, anyhow, why should he bother trying to make her do it now? Instead he turned over his shoulder, reaching an arm out to her, his fingers stretching for hers. Without missing a step, she grabbed them tightly, holding on for dear life.

He ignored the pleased, giddy feeling that crept in his fantastic mind that enjoyed the weight of the girl's hand in his, the sound of her breathless and excited beside him. She was there because he couldn't get rid of her, because she kept turning up, and if he left her alone she'd only get herself in some other sort of trouble. That was all. It wasn't as if he wanted her there or even needed her there. If anything she was simply one more thing he had to worry about as he tried to sort this all out. Hopefully she didn't muck everything up with the Consciousness once he found it. Humans always had the habit of throwing a monkey wrench into these things.

He didn't want to think that he actually enjoyed her being there with him.


	6. Gymnastics and Window Dressing

He should have suspected this would go bad the minute that the Consciousness brought up the Time War.

The Doctor had hoped, perhaps in vain, that the entity would not jump to the Time War, or to the role his people played in it. He had hoped that if he dropped "Shadow Proclamation" and treatise the Consciousness would simply assume he was there on behalf of the inter-galactic police force and would be willing to deal honestly with him. Perhaps the anti-plastic in is pocket would not be necessary…or at least he hoped it wouldn't be necessary. He had forgotten though, in his old, doddering brain how reactionary the Nestene could be, and that they remembered the Doctor all to well. He shouldn't have been surprised that it panicked at the site of a Time Lord, one of the authors of its now current homelessness. After all, Dalek, Time Lord, what did it matter in the grand scheme of the Nestene Consciousness' loss? As far as the entity was concerned they were all responsible for the death of the species, and they were all equally a threat. Finding the TARDIS was simply the ultimate proof that the Doctor was not there to negotiate, but to finish off the work the Time War had started.

He met Rose's fathomless eyes staring down above him and his dual hearts lurched painfully within him. Just a girl, an innocent kid he had allowed to get wrapped up in this. He should have dropped her off at home before coming here, deposited her safe and sound and gone about his business. But selfishly he had allowed himself to bring her there, and now she and her idiot of a boyfriend would both suffer the consequences.

"What's it doing," she asked, trying to hide the quaver in her voice and failing miserably. Somehow even the pretense of bravery warmed the Doctor as he regarded her apologetically.

"It's the TARDIS. The Nestene has identified its superior technology. It's terrified!" He had been such an idiot. How could he have thought he could walk in here with reason and expect to convince it?

"It's going to the final phase. It's starting the invasion." He struggled briefly against the unrelenting, plastic grips of the Autons beside him. "Get out, Rose, just leg it. Now!"

She should have listened. But when had Rose listened to him since he met her? Rather than taking his shouted command to flee, she reached into her pocket for her cell phone. Chatting at a time like this?

Below the Nestene began to hum and pulse, electric energy forming and coalescing as it climbed up to a transmitter hanging above the vivid, orange mass. The electrical signal vibrated its way up, and he could feel the entire structure quake beneath his thick boots.

"It's the activation signal," he cried out. "It's transmitting!"

Right now, in the streets of London above, whole armies of shop mannequins were likely coming to life. As families took advantage of the warming weather, they would be wandering about as out of the open, plate glass fronts these white, faceless everyday objects would begin to move, begin to open fire on the populace, taking out entire crowds of people in the blink of an eye. It would be pandemonium.

And all because he didn't stop and think this through. How many would die in the world above them that night because he had been foolish and over-confident, and had stupidly believed he could reason himself out of this situation. His options were limited now. The Autons had the anti-plastic, and were holding it well away from him. And their grip on him was tight. But in the end they were still just plastic dummies, no weight to them. If he could get good leverage, perhaps swing himself just right, he could topple the one into the other, knocking both into over into the Nestene Consciousness, taking the anti-plastic with them. Of course, they would likely be taking him with them as well. And that was the sort of death he highly doubted he could come back from.

Well…he had to go sometime, didn't he? And lets be honest, he reasoned with himself, it wasn't as if he hadn't had a bit of a death wish in this regeneration anyway. After all, he had never expected to come out of the Time War alive in the first place. As Gallifrey burned and the time lock sealed he had fully expected that he would die there, with his people…so he wouldn't have to face the weight of what he had done alone. But the universe was cruel, and rather than die a final death, he had lived, the singular survivor of a now long dead species.

Dead because of his hand, because of his doing. Gone, gone, Gallifrey gone, and he continued on and on, hopping from world to world, from time to time, doing now in this face and body what he couldn't do for his own people. Saving races, saving people, doing what he can to make one little difference. One family on the Titanic, one person at Krakatau, a child in Constantinople the day that it fell, all those lives here and there, all because he couldn't save the one race of people he wanted to save most. Perhaps, he reasoned as he stared into the glowing, orange depths below, this was his time after all. She would live, so would her idiot boyfriend, and he could go where he belonged…the way of the rest of the Time Lords. All he would have to do would be to tip right over, taking the one dummy with him.

He stared up at the golden brown eyes of the girl above him. She stared back, but not in hopelessness or abject fear. Something fierce crossed through that gaze, determination setting on her pretty face as she made off to the stairs. It took even his fabulous, Time Lord brain a moment to realize what she was up to, and stomach in between his two hearts. He watched her swing, unafraid straight towards one of the mannequins holding him down.

He grabbed her before she could fly off over the Consciousness, holding her tight as the anti-plastic did its work. He wanted to tell her she was brilliant, that she was fantastic, that he had not met a human quite like her. What he did instead was grin in abject delight at the roiling, writhing mass, quickly turning blue below them, and glance madly at the girl beside him.

"Now we're in trouble," he laughed, grabbing her hand and pulling her behind him. He had his key in hand, jamming it in the door, jarring his shoulder hard, but he hardly cared. He slammed open the TARDIS, tossing Rose inside as he reached for the great lump crying at the door and drug him inside as well.

"Hold on," he cried merrily, running to the console to jam levers and press buttons, twirling dials at the time rotor pulsed and the TARDIS engines grinded. The moaning lump whimpered and cried, but Rose…he looked to the slip of blonde and denim, eyes wide, but a smile curving her face. She could have given up back there, turned into a spineless jelly like that thing she called a boyfriend. But she hadn't. She had thrown herself into the thick of it. She had saved the world! She had certainly saved his life.

Done that for him…a perfect stranger…and alien one at that. A man with so much blood on his hands, not that she knew that, and yet there she was, frumpy clothes, overdone make-up, and a determined glare, out to take on something she had never seen before all to save his wretched, measly life. Without a second thought…

Perhaps he had underestimated Rose Tyler.

He flipped a switch, the time rotor stopped, and both of his human occupants, wide-eyed and overwhelmed, took one look at it as he nodded to the door. Rickey or Dickey or whatever he was didn't need a second telling, he simply bolted, throwing himself out of the doors and out onto the street. Rose simply rolled her eyes and followed pulling her cell phone from her jean pocket, as if the world hadn't been ending thirty seconds ago.

He'd been alone for such a very long time.

"What do you think?" He glanced up at the console room ceiling, wondering if the TARDIS had much to say on the subject. His ship couldn't speak to him, not per se, but it seemed pleased with the idea as far as he could tell. Not that he had ever consulted with his ship before when bringing others on board, but for so long now it had just been she and him, the last two of their kind in the universe. Perhaps they both needed someone new in the place to liven it up, someone fresh, someone who hadn't seen the same, tired things through the old, tired eyes.

He wandered to the door, watched the pair of them. The idiot was hiding behind a pallet, large, frightened eyes turned on him as if he were green with three heads, which the Doctor could show him, if he wished. But really, the Doctor had eyes for one girl, who was laughing as looked at him, half in wonder, half in boast.

"A fat lot of good you were," she chortled proudly.

He shrugged with a confidence he didn't feel. "Nestene Consciousness, easy."

"You were useless in there," she snorted, her wide, full mouth grinning cockily. "You'd be dead if it wasn't for me."

"Yes, I would," he admittedly simply. She was brilliant. And he needed brilliance in his life, light and warmth and shining.

"Right, then, I'll be off," he glanced towards the flashing lights and sirens in the distance, knowing he wanted no part of that. He glanced sideways at the girl with her battered hoody and shrugged. "Unless…I don't know. You could come with me."

He saw the spark of interest in those eyes. It gave him courage to press on. "This box isn't just a London hopper, you know, it goes anywhere in the universe free of charge."

She wanted to come. At least, she was intrigued by the idea. But the great lump lunged, wrapping his arms around her waist, as if trying to hold her down to the meaningless, beans-and-toast life he clearly enjoyed.

"Don't!" The lump cried. "He's an alien! He's a thing!"

_Oi,_ he thought, glaring at him. "He's not invited," he shot back emphatically. Not till he grew up and learned a thing or two about being polite. His gaze flickered to the girl again. "What do you think? You could stay here. Fill your life with work and food and sleep. Or you could go anywhere…"

Rose considered. But clearly she wasn't stupid. "Is it always this dangerous?"

"Yeah," he admitted before he could stop himself.

Interested…but wary. "Yeah, I can't." She shook her head, glancing down at the weight at her waist. "I've got to find my mum and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so…"

She trailed off, looking apologetic. Right. Well, he thought she would be perfect for a companion, but then what did he know? Daft, old mad man that he was, not everyone would be interested in living his life of danger. And it was clear that she had people depending on her, she couldn't just flit away. Who was he to take her away to parts unknown, just out of a selfish whim?

"Okay," he replied, hiding the dejection that edged cool acceptance. "See you around."

With that he went back inside, closed the door, and didn't look back.

"Well then, new places to go, things to do," he sighed, rubbing his hands together as he shrugged inside his battered, leather coat. "Could do with a pizza after all, might bit peckish, perhaps Naples, 19th century. Try one of the first ones? Or perhaps the New Roman Empire, give one of those a try…"

Levers flicked, dials spun, the time rotor ground its way to life, and he was off and running. There was something to do, he was sure. And yes, it would have been nice to do it with a companion, a young, bold, vivacious thing to egg him on. Well…he'd been doing this alone for a while. What was another century…or three…or forever?

The TARDIS stopped. He blinked at his console in surprise. He hadn't even bothered to put coordinates in yet, hadn't decided if he wanted thick or thin crust. But the old girl stopped, still as he frowned at his computer monitor. Where had she taken him now?

The same alley, the same sirens, the same lump, and the same girl. He frowned. He hadn't wanted to go here. He didn't give second chances. She said no, that was that. She had a mum, she had a lump, and she had her television, and she certainly didn't want pizza with him in 19th century Naples….

Or did she?

_Rasillion_, he was old and thick and old! A space machine, yeah, sure, okay that might take you to see the stars, but a time machine that could take you anywhere, any when to see those stars, now that was something entirely different. He stormed to the door, flinging it open to blink at Rose frowning in hopeful confusion outside.

"By the way," he called out cheerily, "did I mention it also travels in time?"

With that he walked away, leaving the door open for her. He didn't know why she would come back, only that she would. And he waited, as rubber footsteps hit asphalt and finally ran inside of the TARDIS. The doors closed behind her, he flicked the lever, and the time rotor came to life. And he smiled at her across the console.

"Right then, Rose Tyler, you tell me, where do you want to go?"


	7. A Bit of Showing Off

It had been so long since he felt the need to impress anyone. But really, she egged him on, when it came down to it, she was to blame, standing there with her tongue in her teeth, her wicked gleam in her eyes, and the provoking way she arched one of those eyebrows that was so much darker than her hair. He couldn't help himself. So he decided to escalate what could have been a simple trip into the future into a trip to the restaurant at the end of the universe.

Well…more a pleasure platform, really…and not so much the end of the universe as much as Earth. But the nibbles were killer, and the poshest, most interesting people always showed up at these events, which was great for a laugh or three. And he highly doubted Rose Tyler of the Powell Estates in London had seen anything nearly as weird as what she would find at this event.

The Doctor couldn't help the indulgent smile as she ran down the ramp she had run up just minutes before, knowing that she had just stepped from grimy, 21st century London into Wonderland. He cherished that moment, really, always had with all of his companions, all the way back to Barbara and Ian, up through Sarah, even with young and destructive Ace. There was that glimmer in the eye, that look of disbelief and delight, the peculiar human trait of not fully believing something could be possible but secretly, deep down hoping it was and finding joy in it when it came true. He sort of felt like Father Christmas every time one of his companions opened that door for the first time.

He indulgently watched the blur of gold and gray run down the steps towards the observation window, like a child eager to press her nose out to see what was there. Rose Tyler, simple human girl, hadn't seen anything more remarkable than a new chippy on her world, and here she was getting ready to witness something that no one she knew living would ever get to see.

"You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you're going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids." Not that those things weren't going to kill them, he reasoned, but why worry about it to the point of obsession? "You never take time to imagine the impossible. That you survive."

Survive and thrive. That was the key strength of the human race, one of the most tenacious the universe had ever seen. "This is the year five point five slash apple slash twenty six. Five billion years in your future, and this is the day…"

He paused and looked at his wristwatch. Not that it was a proper one, mind, he could tell the time perfectly without it, but it did provide a rather dramatic effect.

"Hold on," he murmured, before glancing back up. Even as he did so, the sun turned red-orange, throbbing and flaring angrily over an unprotected planet Earth.

"This is the day the sun expands," he smiled gleefully, glancing at Rose. "Welcome to the end of the world!"

Her response was to simply look at him as if he were daft.

"What, don't believe me?"

"My first trip in your time and space machine, and you bring me to see the Earth get destroyed?"

He thought it was impressive. "Can't deny it's a time machine if I bring you to see the end of all things, now can you?"

She shrugged, them smiled, a broad one, full of teeth and mischief. She turned to watch the spinning, blue orb down below them. He stood, watching it with her. Humans, so preoccupied with death and dying, so few of them ever remembered that their planet too had a birth and would have a death. Had it even occurred to her? Somehow, he doubted that, or if it did it was one of those far off concepts that she had filed away under, _Not Bloody Likely In My Lifetime, _and had left it at that. Well, everyone needed to have their horizon's expanded just a bit, and it was time for him to blow Rose Tyler's completely out of proportion.

He leaned in and nudged her, a grin spreading across his face. "So, care for a bit of exploring?"

She turned, warm eyes wide as she realized that there was more to this adventure than simply staring at her home underneath her feet. "You think we can?"

"Why not? Who's to stop us?"

"I don't know…people?" She shrugged, smirking as he rolled his eyes. "What, I don't know anything about the year five point five slash…why apple?"

"Why not apple, better than pear," he reasoned cheerfully, tugging her arm and pulling her alongside of him. "Not as good as banana, but who knows, as apple starts with A and banana with B, maybe they will pick that next."

Her only response was to stare at him quizzically.

"Are you always this mad?"

He pretended to stop and think about it a bit. "Yeah, usually. Come along, Rose Tyler," he laughed, making sure to whip out his sonic screwdriver and lock the TARDIS as they wandered past. "Let's go see what trouble we can find."


	8. Could Use With A Car Park

Honestly, so picky about where to stick the TARDIS? It was a blue box, how much space did it take? It wasn't as if anyone was using the bloody gallery at the moment, and the old thing was unobtrusive enough. Stupid, bloody niceties, it wasn't as if he'd taken a piss in the potted plant or anything.

"Oi! Now, careful with that!" The little, blue members of staff wheeled it out, grunting and muttering as they did. "Park it properly. No scratches!"

The ringleader of the brigade passed him a ticket that said, "Have a Nice Day" on it. Well, some things don't change in five billion years.

"Right, thanks." He nodded at the bunch as they took off, he wondered briefly where Rose had gotten. Not ten minutes into their first adventure and she was already wandering off. He'd have to reiterate the rules to her…wait, check that. He didn't think he had iterated the rules just yet. Yes, well, he'd have to remind her not to wander off. Good way of getting herself killed, imprisoned, or accidentally married off.

Where in the world did she get off too?

Well, if he had a guess, and he believed he was fairly good at this deductive reasoning thing, he would say that Rose was likely doing what any human who was overwhelmed in a new place would do. She was hiding in a quiet corner, far away from all the strangeness, likely brooding, and perhaps looking for something familiar to her. That left the observation galleries.

He didn't have to wander far. After jiggling the doors of the first two, calling her name, he wandered into the third and found her exactly where he had expected, brooding over the dying planet that had been her home five billion years ago.

"What do you think,' he called, settling beside her, earning a wry look from her as she lifted her shoulders.

"Great…yeah, fine. Once you get past the slightly psychic paper."

He knew that look, that tone of voice. He'd seen it on every companion who had crossed his TARDIS' door. And yeah, he could understand, he supposed, it was a bit like wandering into fairyland. You go from your safe and normal to blue skinned people, and it was a lot to wrap a tiny, human brain around.

"They're just so…alien. The aliens are alien," Rose clarified, her fingers shaping as she tried to express herself to him. "You look at 'em and they're…alien."

What did she expect in space, a bevy full of runway models? "Good thing I didn't take you to the Deep South," he quipped. Now there were some aliens. He once met a woman in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina with no teeth, no shoes, and spitting tobacco into a tin bucket. But she was mean with a twenty-two. And it was the best rabbit stew he had ever had on any planet in any time.

"Where are you from," she asked, slipping that in without his notice. Alerts went off as he automatically shrugged and flashed his manic smile.

"All over the place," he brushed off handily.

She frowned, trying to puzzle it all out. "They all speak English."

Oh, yes, that part. "No, you just hear English. It's a gift of the TARDIS. The telepathic field gets inside your brain and translates." Hell of a lot better than that Bablefish. The idea of shoving some sort of creature into his ear gave him the willies.

The TARDIS might as well have been a Babelfish for the look Rose was shooting him. "It's in my brain?" She suddenly looked as if she wished to scrub it out now. That wasn't very nice, the old girl was always very polite in people's brains.

"Well, in a good way," he reasoned defensively.

"Your machine gets inside my head," she continued, ignoring him. "It gets inside and it changes my mind…and you didn't even ask?"

He blinked. She sort of had a point, he supposed. "I didn't think about it like that." He never had, really. Problem with being a telepathic alien, you just assume that's how the universe works, you forget there are other beings out there that don't like their thoughts being prodded.

Except no one but the TARDIS prodded his thoughts anymore.

"No," Rose flashed at him, suddenly angry. "You were too busy thinking up cheap shots about the Deep South. Who are you, then, Doctor? What are you called? What sort of alien are you?"

The conversation he wanted to avoid. Why did she have to make this so personal?"

"I'm just the Doctor," he replied, throwing himself up as his answer only served to antagonize her more.

"What planet?"

"Well, it's not as if you'll know where it is!" Nor would she ever know…it was gone, burned, and he had watched it. He had lit the fire.

"Where are you from?" Her voice was shrill behind him, bouncing off the marble, and he had to wonder why it was he thought she would be such a good companion. Twenty-minutes on and she's digging into his secret life?

"What does it matter," he barked back in frustration.

"Tell me who you are," she insisted. Anger roared in his ears with the ringing sound of silence…the emptiness where millions of his kind once stood.

"This is who I am, right here, right now, all right," he snapped, the brewing rage, the aching void that always simmered just under the surface brimming up for just a minute, flashing itself to this child who so barely understood a minute part of the universe. "All that counts is here and now, and this is me."

For all the rage, all the anger, all the resistance, the girl didn't even flinch. Instead she lifted her chin, irritation flashing in her gaze. "Yeah, and I'm here too because you brought me here. So just tell me."

Over the loudspeaker the ethereal voice of Platform One announced the imminence of Earth's death and he seethed. Soon it too would burn and fade, it would exist as nothing more than a memory, a legend. Just like Gallifrey. This girl, who had only ever had the security of her tiny flat in her dilapidated neighborhood in twenty-first century London, she had never known what it was like to be one of the mightiest of races, for all that he despised them for it. She would never know what it was like to stand and watch them fall and then to knowingly end it all. She sat there, staring up at him, the last of the Time Lords, thinking that her tiny, human existence could possibly understand any of what he had been through?

Rose sighed, standing to move beside him, as he turned from her to glower at the doomed planet below. "All right," she reasoned amicably. "As my mate Shareen says, don't argue with the designated driver."

Out of her front pocket she pulled out her tiny, mobile phone. "Can't exactly call for a taxi. There's no signal." As if to demonstrate, she held it up in front of the window, waving it like people do when looking for service. "We're out of range…just a bit."

He thought about smiling in response. But instead, he decided to call a truce a different way. "Tell you what." He snagged her phone and pulled it apart. He knew he had stuck in his pocket somewhere a trans-dimensional transponder, nicked it off a bargain vendor at a planet-sized flea market not long ago. He thought it would come in handy.

"With a little bit of jiggery pockery…." He fit the transponder to the battery and pulled out his sonic screwdriver.

"Is that a technical term, jiggery pockery," she teased. He smiled. Clearly all was forgiven.

"Yeah, I came first in jiggery pokery. What about you?"

"No, I failed hullabaloo," she grinned, eyes bright. She played along. And somehow, that eased the tension in his chest as he handed her back the phone.

"There you go."

She frowned first at it at first, and then dialed, holding it up tentatively to her ear. Clearly, at the other end of the line, five billion years in the past, her mother had picked up. He watched as they chatted, Rose in utter amazement as her mother prated about on whatever mothers did. When she rang off, she looked up at him in utter amazement.

And in that moment, he found he couldn't hold her needling him against her.

"Think that's amazing? You want to see the bill."

"That was five billion years ago." She blinked, a frown forming. "So, she's dead now. Five billion years later my mum's dead."

Well, if she wanted to go all pessimistic on him all of the sudden. "Bundle of laughs you are," he muttered.

Before she could formulate a reply, the space station beneath their feet began to shake.

"That's not supposed to happen."

Rose, who had never been off the ground her entire life, let alone in space, stared fearfully out the window. "Something wrong, then?"

"Yeah," he replied bluntly, nodding towards the gallery door. "And I think the two of us should go find out, don't you?"

"Hell of a lot better than me sitting here while you figure it out," she replied, falling into step beside him. "Your life always like this?"

"Like what?" He had no idea what she meant.

"You know…you crash a futuristic party, something goes wrong, there's a mystery to solve?"

"No," he replied as they wandered back down the hallway towards the main area. "Believe it or not, sometimes I have quiet, boring, very average days too."

Not often, but yeah…he had them.

"Clive said that you leave death and destruction in your wake." He could hear the hint of carefulness in her voice. Even now, she was trying to work him out, like a puzzle. He supposed she was going to keep doing that, it was what humans tried to do, to understand what was around them.

"And who is Clive to think he knows me so well," he asked loftily.

"Some nutter I met who had a website dedicated to you." She grinned up at him. "You have fans."

"Wonderful," he snapped as the doors to the main room opened. Fans…he had fans? What in he hell was that about? Fans?

He couldn't help it if trouble seemed to find him wherever he went. It just seemed to appear.


	9. Death and Chips

Perhaps it had been a tad bit cruel bringing Rose to see the end of the Earth her first time out. He'd been so busy showing off, so full of himself, so callous to the idea of death and dying, he hadn't thought about it. Not really, he realized. In some ways he had been as flippant about the entire thing as Cassandra was about the lives she took. Everything has its time. Everything dies.

But it wasn't Rose Tyler's time…not for a while yet.

He watched her as she stood by the window, motionless against a backdrop of burning bits of asteroid. It was all that was left of the place she currently called home. The very Earth that had been beneath her feet now spun lazily around the swollen sun, without even a sign that they had once belonged to a teeming planet, with a history rich and full and lush.

He thought of Gallifrey.

"The end of the Earth," she sighed, staring at it all in sad wonder. "It's gone. We were too busy saving ourselves. No one saw it go. All those years, all that history, and no one was even looking. It's just…"

She trailed off, and the Doctor's hearts ached. He knew that pain so well, that sense of wanting someone to have noticed, to have seen. His home had long ago faded into legend. No one was there to see it die, save him. At least Earth would be remembered. If nothing else by her descendants who filled the galaxy and scattered through the stars, taking the story of their home with them. His people were as dead as the planet he had called home.

He was all that remained.

"Come with me," he gently called her, leading her away from the sorry sight. The TARDIS stood waiting patiently for them in the loading area, her hum comforting as he unlocked the doors and let Rose silently in.

He pulled up the coordinates quickly as Rose huddled on the dilapidated jump seat, wrapping her arms around herself. She hardly noticed as the time rotor came to life, but blinked as soon as it stopped, glancing curiously over at him.

"It's exactly twelve noon on the day that I met you in London," the Doctor said, nodding at his monitor. "No where near your shop, can't cross your timeline, but it's home."

Rose stirred, curious as she shuffled to the door. It was a busy street corner near the financial district. People teemed back and forth between office buildings on lunch breaks. Somewhere a baby was crying. A man was laughing and another was hawking the latest edition of one of the tabloids. And in the middle of it all Rose stopped and stared, listening.

The Doctor followed, watching her. Oh yes, life had left the Earth long before it actually met its end, but that hadn't stopped Rose Tyler from mourning it. She had compassion in spades. But there was life yet on Earth, there would be for a long time and well after it ceased to exist. Her people had a future. His did not.

"You think it'll last forever," he sighed, glancing at the teeming people, the swarming cars, the signs of life all around him. "People and cars and concrete. But it won't. One day, it's all gone. Even the sky."

The flaming sky, the fields of red, the silver mist of trees on the mountains beyond…

"My planet's gone," he murmured, turning to look at her, answering the question he couldn't before. "It's dead. It burned, like the Earth. It's just rocks and dust before its time."

Perhaps that was why he had taken her there. Perhaps he needed her to understand.

"What happened," she asked, curiosity and sympathy filling her question.

"There was a war and we lost." Everyone lost, Dalek, Time Lord, everyone…

"A war with who? What about your people?"

"I'm a Time Lord." The words ached as they tumbled out, the first time he had ever said it since that horrible day so long ago. "They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left traveling on my own cause there's no one else."

Not Susan, not Romana, no one else….

"There's me," Rose offered simply. She smiled up at him, so kind, so open, it seemed so obvious to her that she could stand there and fill the aching void left in his life.

"You've seen how dangerous it is," he cautioned. "Do you want to go home?"

A part of her hoped that she would, for her own sake. She was too young and fragile for the sort of life he led and too innocent to be around a man like him, a killer, a murderer, a man with blood on his hands. But there was that other part of him, the sad, broken, lonely part of him that desperately hoped she would stay.

She considered carefully. Rose Tyler may be young but she knew the weight of this, of what it could mean. "I don't know," she began, indecisive. "I want…oh."

She paused, turning around, glancing through the thick of people. "Do you smell chips?"

"Yeah." Now that she mentioned it, he did smell chips. A grin cut across his face. "Yeah!"

"I want chips," she muttered hungrily.

"Me too," he replied, realizing he had been starving even since the pizza shop and Rickey the Idiot's plastic doppelganger.

"Right then," Rose nodded decisively. "Before you get me back in that box, chips it is and you can pay."

Well, there was that. "No money," he replied apologetically.

"What sort of date are you," she groused, grinning up at him. "Come on, then, tightwad, chips are on me. We've only got five billion years till the shops close."

Laughing she took his hand and pulled him through the crowds. And he let her do it, for once not thinking of running or hiding, but following this painfully human girl into the tiny, grease smelling chippy, with its fried foods and tired office workers. All around him, boring, mundane Earth continued, oblivious to their future, while Rose joyfully ordered, snagging a golden, fried potato off the top of the pile that was placed in front of her on the counter.

"Oh God, that's gorgeous," she sighed. Watching her, the Doctor had to agree. It was gorgeous.

"Come, sit," she jerked her head to a table, one with chrome and Formica and high stools. He couldn't help himself as he followed in her orbit, slipping onto one of the seats, holding the soft drinks and watching as she dug into her serving.

"Not a lot of food on that Platform One," she groused as she gratefully sipped her drink and waived him towards the golden mountain of fried goodness. He snagged one of the hot chips, his supposedly superior Time Lord stomach grumbling at the lack of food intake of late.

"Well, I suppose once the steward burned up no one was there to think of the appetizers."

That sobered Rose slightly. "All those people dead just because of Cassandra's greed?"

He noticed how she used "people" to indicate beings that she had referred to as alien only two hours before. "Greed is one of the few constants in the universe. Cassandra is no different than many beings from the dawn of time."

"I suppose," she sighed, munching on a chip while glancing at the people out of the window. "I guess you always hope in the future it will be different, that people will learn their lessons."

The Doctor watched her quietly. She had a rather optimistic view of the universe, far more than his. Had he ever been that hopeful in his life?

"So tell me about yourself, Rose Tyler?"

She blinked, staring back at him, wide hazel eyes rolling as she shrugged. "Not much to tell about me."

"Everyone has a story," he replied, sipping at his soda and waiting. She finally blushed and grinned under his scrutinizing gaze, toying with a chip as she looked anywhere but him.

"I don't know my story isn't big or grand." She shoved the chip into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully, considering. "My mum, you met her, she raised me. Dad died years ago, accident. We've been on the estates since I was a baby, Mum could never get a job long enough to move out."

She paused, frowning as she realized what she said. "Not that Mum didn't do things to take care of me, she did hair mostly, took in people at the house, was cheap but she did a good job. She made enough to at least take care of me, that's for sure."

He couldn't help but smile softly at the simple need of a child to defend the mother she loved. "We do what we have to do to take care of our children. I wouldn't judge your mother for that." He paused. "I might judge her for coming on to me while I stood in her doorway."

Rose snickered, her face lighting up as she laughed hysterically. "Mum does that with every male who walks through the door. If you're breathing, you're eligible." She chortled, reaching a trainer clad toe to push his leg. He didn't mind.

"Well, I think I'm a bit too…alien for your Mum."

"I don't know, you haven't seen some of the men she's dated." Rose chuckled as she considered. "Mum doesn't mean much by it, though. She's lonely. She never found anyone else after Dad. Personally, I think she's always been hung up on him. But it doesn't mean she isn't human, that she doesn't want company. I mean, there's me, but I'm her daughter, yeah. It's just…not the same."

It wasn't just humans who felt that loneliness, the Doctor sighed. He knew just what Rose was speaking of, that desire to just connect with someone, however briefly, just to make it all go away for a while, to forget just how alone you were in the universe. That was the whole reason he had asked her with him, wasn't it?

"So what about this boyfriend of yours?" He decided to switch subjects before he strayed too dangerously into that nebulous area of feelings. "Planning on marrying him?"

Rose nearly choked on her soda as she swallowed. "Mickey? God…no! I don't think." She shook her head, blonde hair flying vehemently against the idea. "I mean, we are dating and everything, but we aren't…like that."

Perhaps not to her, but the Doctor had seen how his arms had wrapped around Rose's waist possessively, even if Rose hadn't. "So why are you dating him?"

She looked as if she hadn't ever considered that question before. Perhaps, being the girl that she was, she hadn't. "I don't know. I mean…Mickey has just always been around. We grew up together. He's older by a bit, but still, we always saw each other as kids. Knew his Gran, he was always just around."

"The faithful sidekick?"

"Something like that," she smiled, remembering. "Anyway, he was there for me when I needed a friend, and we sort of just fell in with each other."

"A relationship of convenience?"

She didn't like that term, but he could tell she was smart enough not to argue it. "Yeah, I guess. Mick's a great bloke, no denying it, but he was there."

"As opposed too..."

She frowned at his speculative look, something uncomfortable passing across her expression. "Don't know what you mean."

"Well, Mickey is like the comfy blanky you wrap yourself with because he's safe. Which, in my very long experience, means that there was once someone there who wasn't so safe. So fess up, who was it?"

The Doctor hadn't spend centuries running through time and space in the universe with humans without learning something of their psychology. Rose Tyler with her guileless expression and youthful naiveté was about as easy to read as a book. Mickey the Idiot was nice enough, but he wouldn't have drawn this girl's attention without there being someone to have burned her enough to want someone easy and as devoted as a puppy.

Rose met his expectant expression mutinously for long moments, but he didn't budge. She sighed, throwing up her hands. "Jimmy Stone."

"Jimmy Stone?" He rolled that name across his tongue, considering it as he swallowed his chip. "With a name like that either his family was in masonry or he was one of those twitting prats who thinks he can be a rock musician one day. Let me guess, he was in a band?"

Rose by this time had covered her eyes with one hand in seeming embarrassment, peeking behind fingers. "Yeah," she squeaked.

"Ahhh, and how old were you?"

"Sixteen."

"And I would be right in guessing this is where the A-levels went?"

"Look, he said he loved me and that I was his muse."

"Of course, that's what I would say if I was young, stupid, and played a guitar in a band. Easy way to pick up the women."

"Are you going to sit there and make fun of me for the rest of the afternoon?" She frowned in deep mortification and irritation at him.

"I could, but really, no. But it does tell me something about you."

"It does?" She blinked mildly at him, trying to figure out what in the world it possibly could say. Realization slapped her in the face then. "You mean, all this, you were interviewing me?"

Very good…very clever. "Sort of. Can't have some crazed, ax murderer in my ship, she gets a bit tetchy about that."

"You were trying to figure out if I was sane enough to travel with you?"

"I wouldn't say sane, not in this life I lead." He leaned on the table, pushing aside the rest of his chips. "But I did learn this, Rose Tyler. You are a young, sheltered girl, trapped by circumstances, whose always wanted something more out of this universe than what it has dealt for you, am I right?"

His observations hit home. She stared at him, mouth slightly open, half in fear, half in amazement. "I don't hate my life."

"I didn't say you did. But you, Rose, are far too brave, clever, and compassionate for this sort of place. So when a mad man in a blue box arrives and offers you the universe, you took it. May have blinked for a moment. Who can blame you? A lonely mother whose always depended on you, a boyfriend who is a faithful lapdog, these are things you felt you needed to stay for, at least for a minute. But there's that part of you, that part who wanted to run away with Jimmy Stone, who just wants for once in her life to be something bigger, to do something grander, isn't that right?"

She nodded, ever so imperceptibly.

"Right," he grinned back at her, the mad, take-the-universe-by-storm grin. "You ever been to Naples?"

If his non sequitur confused her, she quickly recovered. "Errr…no."

"The pizza there is amazing." He slid off the stool as Rose glanced at her half-eaten chips. "What? Not in the mood for pizza?"

"Well, I just have eaten. But I haven't gone to Italy." She cocked her head, a slow smile crossing her face. "When in Italy?"

"I don't know? Could do Renaissance, but that's a bit violent. Imperial times were too mad, like going to Vegas without the Elvis impersonators, and then there is that pesky volcano. Could do more recent times." He realized he was prattling and glanced sideways at her. "You up for another adventure, Rose Tyler? Danger and all?"

He held out his hand to her. It was a simple gesture. One anyone might make to help a lady off a stool. But it was so much more for him. And she stared at it for only a fraction of a second. Then she slipped her own, slightly greasy fingers in his, warm and eager.

"Right, off to the past, Rose Tyler. Feeling up for it?"

Her smile was brilliant as she hopped to the floor beside him.

"With you? Anywhere!"

He couldn't ignore the way his hearts swelled at those words, the way his grin widened ever so slightly. He simply squeezed her hand and pulled her behind, eager to show her something she had never seen before.


	10. For A Human

He'd forgotten how long the female set took in seeing to their wardrobe. Over many centuries of female companionship the Doctor had gotten used to the length of time it took the ladies to get ready for most events. From Susan to Peri, even Ace at moments, they would piddle and preen, picking through garments in the wardrobe room and fussing in mirrors till often he got bored and fell asleep. So, in keeping with that expectation, the minute he had sent Rose Tyler off to change out of her raggedy denim and jersey knit into something more respectable in late 19th century society, he had simply busied himself with something he knew would keep him occupied.

"Time to tweak that faulty circuit of yours, eh old girl," he asked the TARDIS good-naturedly. His ship didn't seem nearly as amused by the idea. Her lights dimmed and he got the impression of a deep, long-suffering sigh from her.

"You know you need it," he muttered, opening the grating to delve into the mass of metal and wiring that served as his beautiful ship's working circuitry. Very little of it, well, practically none of it was original. Like his face, the inside of his ship had changed drastically over the centuries, though bits of pieces of it could be found all over the TARDIS in nooks and crannies. Sometimes he suspected she just changed things on a whim. Like any woman, she kept the ability to look different decidedly her prerogative. Yet the console change had been, more than anything, a reflection of the same trauma that he himself had gone through. The TARDIS had pared herself down to bare coral and metal. Gone was the neat white and chrome that he had gotten her in. Now, just like he was, she was stripped down to her most basic elements, her most necessary parts.

The only thing that stayed constant was the console itself. Even that now was a mish-mosh of odds and ends he used to make the old girl go. Not much of her had been left after the Time War and he had tried to make do with what he could find and pilfer to make her run. What had been a highly tuned lever before now was merely something he stole off of a tram on one world he visited. A button he nicked from a child's toy replaced a sensor light that had gone missing sometime during the war. The TARDIS was now a patchwork of different bits and bobs all just trying to stay together long enough to keep running.

And whether she liked it or not, she had things that needed tweaking, lots of things. So much of her had never fully healed over from the war, and she needed a firm hand in these matters. His ship would rather ignore it than let him try to fix it until the matter got so bad that it had to be addressed. And frankly, if he was going to be the only Time Lord left in existence he'd rather not have to be stuck in an awkward situation with a broken TARDIS trying to figure out how he was going to get himself out of near certain arrest, torture, or death. And now that he had Rose with him that was doubly paramount.

Speaking of Rose, what was taking her? Nearly as soon as the thought rose to his mind he could hear footsteps in the hallway, heeled shoes rattling against the grate. He glanced up, still half expecting to see Rose in tatty jeans, and was stunned to find something else standing before him.

Where the dress came from, he didn't know, his many companions over the years had left things. It could have been Victoria's or Leela's, or something Sarah had stowed away and forgotten. The full, satin skirts were perhaps a bit more pinky that proper ladies would have worn. The neckline perhaps a bit too daring with its off the shoulder sleeves. But in that moment such idiosyncrasies didn't seem to matter. The girl who had left the room had come back a proper, high-class lady. And she was staring at him, amber colored eyes filled with apprehension as she tried not to laugh. Rose Tyler, the girl who lived in jeans and t-shirts, clearly had no idea how breathtaking she could be when she bothered to realize she was a lovely, young woman.

"Blimey," he breathed, eyes wide up at her, startled by her fresh-faced beauty as she shot him an accusing look.

"Don't laugh," she smirked, obviously feeling utterly ridiculous. And she shouldn't, _Rassilion,_ she shouldn't, not with the anticipation dancing in her expression and the wonder at what might be just outside the TARDIS's closed doors.

"You look beautiful," he tried to assure her. But it occurred to him how he had sounded, breathless and gaping like a schoolboy at the Academy. So of course he had to qualify it. "Considering."

Him, a 900-year-old Time Lord, getting all twitter patted by a pretty young girl in a lovely, period dress? Not the first time he'd played dress up with one of the companions. What in the universe was wrong with him?

"Considering what?" One dark eyebrow rose, whether in challenge or honest confusion was hard to tell.

"That you're human," he reeled off flippantly. He hoped to hell it covered his gaffe while not insulting her. He was rewarded with a bemused smirk.

"I think that's a compliment." She eyed him critically though. "Aren't you going to change?"

"I've changed my jumper," he replied defensively looking down at the soft, knit material. Honestly, he never changed. No one paid him a bit of mind anyhow. He could be wearing that circus tent he used to call a coat in his sixth life and no one would notice.

"Come on," he pulled himself out from under the grating, but Rose stopped him, eagerness lighting her expression.

"You stay there. You've done this before. This is mine!"

With rustle of satin skirts she was at the door, opening it up. She stepped gingerly into the snow outside, her eyes filled with wonder. And for his part, the Doctor couldn't stop staring at her. Watching her as she took in the world, realizing that indeed that had just slipped from her twenty-first century life to a time that existed over a hundred years before her birth. She opened the doors and took tentative, ginger steps to the world outside.

"Rose Tyler," he intoned from the doorway. "Welcome to the 19th century."

The grin that spread across her face dazzled the cold, December night beyond.

"I'm really in the past?"

"Yep," he replied, shoving hands into his leather pockets, trying to resist the urge to grin at her as she twirled briefly in the snow. "It is the 19th century. The age before automobiles, computers, and mobile phones, high tech is the new transatlantic cable that allows messages to be wired from New York to London and the world is lit by gas light."

"This is so weird." She giggled, staring at him with a face full of wonder. "So, right now, we're in Naples?"

Ahhh…that. He frowned, glancing around. Naples wouldn't be this cold this time of year. Sure, a December breeze off the Mediterranean was no picnic in the winter, but snow wasn't a common sight there. Buildings were the wrong architecture and if it were really Christmas there would be mass going on somewhere. But there was something else in the air here. It didn't taste right. It didn't feel right. He wasn't about to tell Rose that. Not when she was so excited about the very idea.

"So," he chirped up, grinning like a loon. "Why don't we go about, see what there is to be seen."

Rose took his arm, small hands wrapping around the leather. "And what if there is nothing to be seen? It's Christmas Eve, after all."

"Well, then, we will hope then that something interesting finds us."

"You hope for things like that?"

"Sure, makes life fun!"

"You are so mad," Rose laughed, but it hardly seemed to bother her. "Let's just hope whatever it is no one gets killed this time?"

"That's the holiday spirit, Rose!" He trudged off into the busy, chilly streets and hoped he could figure out where the hell they were and just how dangerous it was.


	11. If These Walls Could Talk

She was safe! That was all that mattered to him at the moment. Well, the situation at hand mattered to him as well, but Rose was fine. More than fine. In fact, in a word, she was brilliant! And she was currently letting into Sneed with a fury that had the Doctor in awe, if not hopeless amusement. Her eyes flashed amber fire as she snapped at him for copping a feel, which made the older man flush in a way that hinted to a certain truth in the matter. Rose Tyler may look like a lovely, flush young lady of property, but in her heart she was an estate born guttersnipe, born and bred, and tough as old boots. Poor Gwyneth, the housemaid, looked aghast.

He had to admit he liked that about the girl. Piss and vinegar in her veins, not just gumption. That was good because he had a feeling that Rose Tyler was going to be one of the most jeopardy friendly companions he'd ever had. Curious to a fault and full of the twenty-first century opinion she could handle anything. She hadn't thought twice about running after Sneed and Gwyneth by herself. He shouldn't have let her. What if he hadn't have been able to get to her. She could be as lifeless as the two bodies in that room.

Perhaps he would need to rethink this new relationship of his.

He should have known she was in the kitchen. Rose had no sense of Victorian propriety and would throw herself into the washing up. He could hear the voices inside, the two girls giggling. Already she had made a friend. Before he could cut in, however, Gwyneth's words spilled out, a tumble of images and things she shouldn't understand, cars and planes and Rose's London.

And the bad wolf…

It was those words again. That phrase that had come to him just the other day…or was it hours ago now, when he had reached with his senses and had brushed against time itself. Those words, "bad wolf". And now they came up again…around Rose? Why around her?

He frowned, reaching and probing mentally to the babbling girl who was uttering apologies as fast as she could to his young companion. As he did he found himself falling into the mind of Gwyneth, into her thoughts, her fears, the voices in her head, the loneliness of a girl who had grown up alone in Wales without her parents. She had been left to fend for herself. How those voices kept her company even as she was afraid of them.

It should have been obvious from the first. Gwyneth was psychic. Or at least a low level one, enough she could receive from someone else who was. He wasn't even sure she was aware that he was in her head. Had it been Rose or anyone else he'd have needed to have some sort of physical contact, but Gwyneth was wide open, waiting for anyone or anything to come in. That was likely how she had picked up on Rose's thoughts. But why had she picked up on "bad wolf"?

"I can't help it," Gwyneth almost sobbed. "Ever since I was a girl. My mam said I had the sight. She told me to hide it."

"But it's getting stronger, more powerful," he cut in, causing both women to turn to him. "Is that right?"

Gwyneth nodded, looking ashamed. "All the time, sir. Every night, voices in my head."

"You grew up on top of the rift." It was simple, really. He would be surprised if much of Cardiff didn't have some sense of psychic ability. But Gwyneth was unique. "You're part of it. You're the key."

"I've tried to make sense of it sir," she bemoaned. "Consulted with spiritualists, table rappers, all sorts."

Load of charlatans and crackpots is who she had been talking to. No one who actually understood a lick of what was really happening. Still, perhaps all the tricks they had taught her weren't completely useless. They may help her to focus. And that was what he needed out of her.

"Well, that should help," he smiled. "You can show us what to do."

Rose's eyes flew up to him, staring at him as if he were a charlatan himself.

"What to do where, sir?" Gwyneth blinked up at him in mild confusion.

"We're going to have a séance," he beamed.

Neither woman looked as if they thought that was a particularly good idea.

"A séance, sir? I haven't ever run one."

"Gwyneth, a séance is merely a crutch." He reached a long finger to tap the young maid's forehead right between her eyes. They crossed as they followed his hand. "You have an ability, Gwyneth. You can speak to these spirits. It's all in your head, right there, but you've had to find a way to control it, to fine-tune it. So, you use a séance to do it. That's all it is, a way for you to focus your mind at the task at hand."

"And you don't think it is horribly…ungodly, sir?" She blinked up at him in mild horror. Poor, sweet Gwyneth, raised on her good, Victorian, Welsh Protestantism. He likely had just scandalized her with the suggestion. Judging by the look Rose was giving him right now he had likely just scandalized her as well for a totally different reason.

"Gwyneth, the only 'ungodly' thing going on here is that Sneed has taken advantage of you for so long. Now, if we do this right, we'll figure out what these beings are and what they want. And perhaps, if we are lucky, we can find a way to end all the haunting. Now, that's nice, and good, and righteous, isn't it?"

Gwyneth seemed to be buying his logic even if Rose was cutting eyes at him. "I suppose, sir."

"Good. Now, you go get the drawing room all set up and I'll gather the others for this."

"Mr. Dickens too?"

"Yes, him too, I think that ol' Charlie needs his mind expanded. Now, get along, we'll be up in a mo'." He rushed the girl off, even as she gave him doubtful looks over her shoulder.

He didn't need to look at Rose to see the disapproval coming at him. "A séance? Parlor tricks, is that what you are resorting to?"

"If it works," he shrugged, brushing her off casually. "And what's all this with you running off thinking your some sort of Wonder Woman?"

"I told you I was trying to stop them. You didn't say no. And don't change the subject! What do you mean Gwyneth has an ability?"

Why in the world did she think she could question him on this? "Just what I said, the girl has talent."

"Doctor, she knew about London. About my London! She saw airplanes and cars." Rose puzzled through it quickly enough. "She's psychic, isn't she?"

"Your race isn't known for being extremely gifted in that way but some of you can display a low level aptitude, yeah."

"So she was reading my thoughts?" Rose shifted uncomfortably. He remembered how she reacted to the TARDIS.

"Well, you can't blame the girl, you were likely broadcasting them rather loudly. "

"I didn't know she could read them!" Rose squawked, glancing towards the hallway where Gwyneth had disappeared. "She was just a normal girl. Course, a normal, overworked, horribly paid girl. You know she only gets eight pounds a year?"

"Welcome to Victorian Britain! No Labor to fight for the worker's rights."

"I'm just saying, Doctor, everyone her entire life has taken advantage of her. She's got no one. Her parents died, she is dependent on this Sneed fellow who doesn't treat her well, and now what are we using her for?"

It wasn't often that the Doctor felt any sense of guilt for his actions…Gallifrey not withstanding, obviously. He could always shroud it in the sense of the greater good and use his great, Time Lord brain and obvious intellect as a way of dissuading large-scale protests. "No one is harming her, Rose. She just is a way for us to make contact. She's an interpreter."

"Yeah, and what if we find out that whatever these things are, they turn out to be a bigger threat than what we thought? I mean…you didn't see those bodies, Doctor. They would have killed me if you hadn't gotten to me."

That part was true. He didn't want to admit it. But his options in this were few. "If we don't, Rose, how many other bodies will they inhabit? This won't stop until they find someone they can finally communicate with."

Rose's full lips pursed. "I still don't like it. This whole…psychic thing. Letting someone into her head."

"It's as bad as all that, Rose," he tried to reassure her. After all, he'd had people inside his head all the time once, hadn't harmed him in the slightest.

Still, she didn't look convinced. He relented somewhat. "I won't make Gwyneth do anything she doesn't want to. Does that make you feel better?"

"No," she replied, a smirk lifting the corners of her mouth. "But it will have to do."

"Right." If that was the best he could get he would take it from Rose Tyler. "Now, why don't you run off to see if Gwyneth needs any help. Just think, Rose, a séance! Not something you can say you've done in your life before! Had a séance with Charles Dickens!"

"No," she nodded in slow agreement as she turned down the hallway towards the drawing room. "Hopefully it beats the hell out of a Ouija board."


	12. Veritas Fortius

Gwyneth had only been nineteen…the same age as Rose.

No sooner than Charles Dickens had faded from view on the TARDIS monitor had Rose raced out to the wardrobe room, shouting something about "getting this bloody torture device off". She left the Doctor to amuse himself, which ordinarily would include him puttering around his ship and tweaking things she didn't like tweaking. This time, however, he found himself sinking slowly to his jump seat, his thoughts on a young woman who believed she was being the good girl her long-dead parents had taught her to be. That she was helping her angels, beings who had visited her since she was a child, beings she believed to be good.

How was Gwyneth to know that the Gelth, long frustrated in their exile and afraid of dying, would turn on her the way that they had? How was she to know that they would end her young life before it began? Sweet, innocent Gwyneth, who had agreed to his madness without a second thought and she had died because of it, because of his guilt and because of his pride.

He should have known. How many races like the Gelth had fallen through the cracks of the Last Great Time War? More than even he knew about, many whose names would never be remembered. Most at least, the lucky ones, died swift, merciful deaths or winked out of existence, their timelines shredded as if they had never been. Others, particularly high-functioning psychic species like the Gelth, were caught in purgatory, not really existing, not really dead, haunting reality as they attempted to press their way back in. So many lives lost…

He had wanted to save them, all of them, if nothing else to feel as if he had won something out of that entire, blasted, damned war. The minute he heard the Gelth's plea he had decided to let them through, to allow them to use human bodies. He had, the Doctor, because that was who he was! Last of the Time Lords, the only one around with authority enough to make that sort of decision, and he had done it without hesitation. It didn't matter that he was using some young, impressionable girl to do it or that her life might be in danger because of it. What was the life of one, nineteen-year-old girl when there was an entire race of people he could save, people he had failed once before to protect.

What was the life of poor, sweet Gwyneth?

The Doctor realized in that moment that he was old. Worse than old, he was tired. Tired, angry, guilty, used up. Never before would he have done something like this, used an innocent in this way. Oh, he had been known to manipulate more than a few of his companions to do what he wanted. And there had been those like Adric who had sacrificed themselves, and how it had hurt when they had. But this was worse even than that. He had used her. And he hadn't cared that he had. He had challenged Rose on it, had pulled rank on her, even as she had called him out on it. And he had dared to question her morality on the subject. Where was his? He hadn't known a thing about the Gelth, just had assumed they were exactly what they appeared to be, and was fully prepared to let people's bodies be inhabited just to save one last race…one more person.

He didn't hear Rose enter. Her rubber soles tread on the grating lightly. It wasn't till she sauntered in front of him, looking immensely relieved, that he noticed her presence.

"How did women stand wearing those things?" She rubbed her side under her t-shirt, wincing as she frowned at him. "Might look classy but its murder to breath in it."

The Doctor's wan smile was his only answer.

"What?" Her frown deepened as she glanced down at herself. "Did I put my shirt on backwards?"

"No," he replied succinctly, rising to move past her to the console. She blinked mildly but said nothing as she plopped down on the very seat he vacated.

"So where are we off to?"

He said nothing at first. He didn't want to say anything. He knew what would happen the moment he did.

"We haven't been to see an alien planet yet," Rose mused, prattling thoughtfully behind him. "Course, now I've gotten to see walking trees and giant heads in jars I wonder what else mad is out there to see."

His hearts ached to hear her.

"Where were you thinking next?" She was trying to get him to answer. Perhaps she could sense his disquiet.

"I was thinking that Powell Estates, London, England might be our next visit." He tried to slide it off nonchalant, to spin it with his devil-may-care charm. But it fell flat. He could tell by the silence behind him it was the last thing that Rose had expected.

"You're taking me home?"

"Yep," he responded without further explanation.

"Why? What did I do?" Her voice rang shrilly through the TARDIS as she leapt to her feet. He didn't need to see her face to know the hurt that was there. She was fairly vibrating with it. He could sense it as easily as he could sense the anger and the confusion that lay beneath it.

"Nothing," he stated honestly, finally turning to regard the hurt expression and the pained eyes. "But I gave you two trips in my magic box. Now it's time for Cinderella to go home."

"So what, that's just it, you come in, whisk me to the future and past, nearly get me killed both times, and then say, 'See ya, have a nice life'?"

"Pretty much." He turned, pretending to busy himself with the TARDIS. She wasn't buying it.

"Why the hell did you ask me along with you in the first place?"

"Thought it would be a treat after saving my life and all."

"I thought it was because it was the last of your kind and you could use a friend."

Rose had hit painfully close to the truth and she knew it. She stood, triumphant, as his temper simmered.

"Like you pointed out, you nearly got killed today, five times as a matter of fact, must be a record for a girl from the estates." He spun away from her, around to the other side of the console. "And as endearing as your sentiment in Sneed's morgue was, Rose, if you had died down there, it would have been my fault."

It didn't take her long to read his point loud and clear. "So what, you are taking me home for my own protection?"

He didn't answer her. He merely stared at the stupid telephone dial he had attached to the console. He counted, waited for the explosion…

"Who the hell are you to get off telling me what to do with my life?"

"I'm the Doctor." His gaze was hard and flat as it met her wounded one.

"Right…the Doctor. You have all the authority," she spat, arms crossed in challenge. "The very same one who just let all those Gelth in because it was better to use a bunch of corpses and turn them into zombies than to let an entire race of disgruntled aliens die off."

And there she hit the nail on the head. Rose was far too perceptive by half, and rage and guilt mixed to an explosive toxin within him, erupting as he whipped around the console to glare down at her. "That's right! I made that decision. I made a decision today to save a race I thought needed it at the expense of a few corpses. I made the decision to save a few lives, was that so wrong?"

Rose didn't even flinch in the face of his ire. Her chin jutted out defiantly as her mascara caked eyes cut upwards at him. "Yeah, and how did that work out for you?"

In an instant he deflated. His shoulders slumped beneath the leather as he found himself looking anywhere but at the stupid girl standing in front of him. "What do you want me to say, Rose? That you were right and I was wrong?"

"No," she replied evenly. "I want you to simply remember that even though you are this Doctor, Time Lord, thing that even you get it wrong sometimes. So why do you think that you can tell me to go home for my protection?"

He couldn't tell if he wanted to strangle her or shake her. So he decided to shove his hands deep into his pockets instead. "That girl, Gwyneth. She was nineteen. Same age as you. Just a kid in the grand scheme of things, and now she's dead because I made a mistake."

He paused to let that sink in, finally looking up at her to see if she understood. "I made a mistake, Rose. And it cost Gwyneth her life. And I can't say I won't make mistakes again and again. You were lucky today. If Charles hadn't figured out the gas, you'd have died. Your mother, Rickey…"

"Mickey," she corrected him quickly.

"Whatever! Neither one of them would have known what became of you. You'd be dead and gone over a century before you were born all because I made a mistake. And I can't put you in that danger, Rose."

"So what," she shrugged mildly. It was such a random gesture after his heartfelt words, a careless movement that left him baffled.

"What?" Had he missed something?

"So what," Rose replied, unfolding her hands to place on her hips. "Doctor, I could get hit crossing the street. A car could plow into my bus. I could get some weird, bird and swine flu and keel over in the street, anything could happen to me."

"Yeah, but none of those things are my responsibility."

"And I'm not yours either," she shot back firmly. "I made my decision to come on board with you. And if I want to stay, then like hell you are kicking me off! Kick me off for being stupid or for breaking a rule. Toss me for messing up timelines or accidentally starting World War III, but don't just shove me back home because you want to protect me." Her lip curled in disdain at the idea.

"You don't know what you are talking about," he spat out. He was angry for reasons even he couldn't fully understand. "You're only nineteen, just a kid."

"Gwyneth was nineteen, you didn't think she was a kid. You let her make her own decision about what she wanted to do as long as it suited your purpose."

It cut and dug and he knew she threw that back at him on purpose. Whatever self-restraint he had left snapped in a flash of white, hot ire. "And I'm the one who has to live with the guilt of her blood on my hands, just like…"

And he stopped…cold. That was his secret, his one secret, the one he had no intention of ever telling Rose. He could never, ever let her know that he was a murder, a destroyer, and the one who had led his people to the slaughter for the common good of the universe. His lips tightened against the words and bit them back, shoving him deep, down into his gut.

"Rose, you'd be far better off being somewhere that wasn't with me." It was a weak argument, the weakest, he knew it, but he couldn't say more without explaining himself. And he knew as the words slipped past the iron restraint of his lips he had lost the argument.

"I think I can make that decision for myself, thanks," she sniffed, leaning against the console. "You offered to have me see the universe with you. I accepted. I don't go back on those things."

Fine…fine. The Doctor heaved a sigh from the bottom of his soul, unwilling to argue it any more. "Where do you want to go?"

She seemed to consider for a long moment, a mischievous glint forming in her eye. But the look she gave him was frank. "How about home?"

He blinked at her, his magnificent brain stuttering for just a moment. "What?"

"Home," she reiterated. "You know, Powell Estates, London, England."

"But you just said you wanted to stay?" He had just spent all that time and effort being defeated in his argument and now she wanted to leave?

The mischievousness bloomed to a full on grin, wide and bright as she laughed. "Seriously, if I'm sticking around here, I'd like to have my own clothes. No more of those corsets. And maybe let my Mum know where I'm going, yeah? That way she doesn't worry."

Right…she was having him on. "You think your Mum will be okay with you taking off with some alien into outer space?"

"No," she shook her head, not seemingly concerned. "But you know, conveniently my job blew up, I'm not in uni, and I never took a gap year. So maybe this is my chance?"

Her tongue reached out between her straight, white teeth. "Besides, who needs to be hiking some mountain in South America when I could be doing it on some alien planet, right?"

He couldn't help but return her smile. _Rassilon, _this was against his better judgment, but he wanted to show her that mountain on an alien planet, to show her the universe. For now the demons of his nature had lost as he clapped his hands together and turned towards the console.

"Right," he cried, spinning dials and pushing buttons. "Well, let's set the course then for home. Let's say, oh….twelve hours after you left your lump in the alley."

"Twelve hours? Feels like longer." Rose moved out of his way as he danced around, pushing and prodding things.

"Yeah, well, it has been, but it's funny how time works that way. I can pick you up in one place in time and set you down in another." As if to emphasize his words, the TARDIS gave a gentle _thud, _as if finally coming down somewhere. The Doctor turned to her, his manic grin spreading across his face.

"So, go get your stuff, your sparkling make-up, your favorite teddy, and be back here in an hour."

"Seriously?" Rose blinked at the doors, her head shaking ruefully. "I don't know if I'll ever get used to that."

"Hop to it, we haven't got all day."

With a grin and a flash of blonde she made her way to the doors with him close behind.


	13. The Estate of Affairs

Nine hundred years of existence and the Doctor had never been slapped by someone's mother, not even when he deserved it.

"Owww," he whinged as he prodded the bruised jaw and glared petulantly across the depressingly gray blocks of functional, institutional estate apartments, wondering what in the hell had gone wrong. He had just been there the day before in his own personal time. In Jackie Tyler's timeline it had been a year, one without her only daughter in it. He replayed the calculations and coordinates in his head. He had never been so bad as to be a whole year off before. What in the hell happened?

"She got you good, didn't she?" Rose at least looked a tad sympathetic, biting her lower lip as she squinted up at his face. "Should have warned you Mum has a mean right hook."

"And a filthy mind, thinking I'm taking liberties with her daughter." That bothered him more than he cared to admit.

"You can't blame her. This day and age there's all sort of sex-crazed psychos out there making off with young women. I was gone a whole year for her. She must have thought I was carried off to be a sex slave."

The Doctor snorted, glaring at no one in particular, but as Rose was standing in front of him she got the brunt of it. "You humans, everything is about sex with you."

"And it isn't for Time Lords?" Rose arched a dark eyebrow up at him in playful way he wasn't sure he liked.

"Time Lords can manage to think about more than one thing at a time. Multi-tasking, that's us."

"So you do think about sex?" Rose snickered as she moved to sit on the wall next to him. The Doctor rolled his eyes, wondering briefly how it was humans put up with their own hormones sometimes.

"Think, occasionally, yes, but I'm not some raving madman out to carry off young women to have my way with." He couldn't believe Jackie Tyler would assume that of him. "I'll have you know I traveled for a while with another girl from the estates, not much younger than you. She was perfectly safe in my company."

It was the first time he had ever mentioned another companion to Rose, who pounced on it with all the curiosity she displayed when he dropped any hint of information about himself. "So you've traveled with others?"

He thought of Ace. She and Rose would have a lot in common. Estate-born girls, the pair of them, the difference was, Ace was now likely Jackie Tyler's age, or close to it. She had been nearly old enough to be Rose's mother when he knew her. He wondered, not for the first time with his companions, what had become of her. And like always he decided it was best to let the past lie there. He had a feeling that Dorothy had no desire to see the Professor and his magic box again.

"I've been around for a while, picked up a stray or two along the way." He didn't elaborate. He couldn't really say why, it wasn't exactly a secret. But he knew if he mentioned the others, all the other young people who had traveled with him, Rose would want to know about them and their stories. And he just couldn't bring himself to think of them…to remember who he was once, before the war, before he was the hard, angry man standing on top of a dilapidated, gray estate.

"So is this what you do, then, just pick up people like me and show them the universe?" Rose's tone was casual, but her words were cautious. As much as she may have thought her mother over-reactionary he could tell that Jackie's suspicions were getting the better of her daughter.

"Yeah," he shrugged, glancing sideways at her. "Rose, I'm not some lecherous old man, out to seduce young women. I'm…just…"

He crossed his arms across himself, helplessly searching for someway of explaining himself. He didn't need to. Rose seemed to get it anyway.

"You're lonely." She nodded, crossing her legs as she perched up beside him, leaning on an elbow as she watched him. "I get it. You're alone. And I think that Mum would get that too."

The last person in this universe he wanted understanding him was Jackie. She hit him. Hard! "I'm not explaining it to her. Don't do domestics."

"Domestics?" Rose snorted, laughing at his sour face. "What, having a conversation with my mother is 'domestic'?"

"Getting slapped in the face certainly is."

"I think you had that coming. If you weren't rubbish at flying we wouldn't be in this mess."

"Rubbish at flying? I took you to the end of the Earth, and you call me rubbish?"

"Yeah! Naples, Christmas, 1860. Ring a bell?"

His response was to only glowering at the graffiti on the far, concrete and brick wall. Rose snickered beside him.

"Come on, Mum deserves an explanation."

"And what one do you plan to give her?" The Doctor turned to shoot her a pointed glance. "She begged you in the kitchen to tell her and you couldn't then."

"I don't know." She threw up her hands in guilty despair. "I can't tell her. I can't even begin. She's never going to forgive me. And I missed a year."

She glanced speculatively at him. "Was it good?"

He thought about it, recalling what he knew about 2005 AD on Earth. Nothing spectacular that he could recall. "Middling."

"You're so useless," she muttered in mock disgust.

"Well, if it's this much trouble, are you going to stay here now," he shot back peevishly. He didn't like thinking about the fact that he hoped she didn't.

"I don't know," she sighed, uncertain. "I can't do that to her again, though."

He could hear the indecision in Rose's voice, the torn conflict. She wanted to go with him, to see the stars. And she couldn't quite cut herself from her mother just yet either. He could sense the idea of a compromise coming, and he had to nip that in the bud. "Well, she's not coming with us."

"No chance," Rose only half-heartedly wondered.

"I don't do families." He'd been too rubbish with his own.

Rose grinned, shaking her head in wonder. "She slapped you!"

"Nine hundred years of time and space, and I've never been slapped by someone's mother!"

"Your face," Rose laughed at him, reveling in his embarrassment and pain.

"It hurt," he protested without much sympathy from his companion.

"You're so gay," she teased, her eyes bright as she regarded him. "When you say nine hundred years?"

"That's my age," he replied, throwing it out there, a morsel about him, curious to see her reaction. He wasn't disappointed. She blinked slowly at him.

"You're nine hundred years old?" It seemed to sink in to her then. He may look like a bloke in his forties to her. But he was a creature who was ancient by comparison to her standards.

Forty-five? Really? Did he look that old?

"Yeah," he assured her. He wondered vaguely if that bothered her.

"Mum was right," Rose exhaled, laughing at the utter strangeness of it all. "That is one hell of an age gap."

She snickered, shaking her blonde head ruefully. "Every conversation with you goes mental." She shrugged her shoulders, thoughtful suddenly. "There's no one else I can talk to. I've seen all that stuff up there. The size of it, and I can't say a word. Aliens and spaceships and things, and I'm the only person on planet Earth who knows they exist."

No, he thought to himself, there were others. Somewhere out there was every companion who he ever had who remained on Earth, from Ian and Barbara up to Ace, and all of UNIT. They all knew the truth. They had all seen the same things. And hell, at this point, they could probably create their own Doctor support group. But before he could say anything about how she wasn't alone, a long, deep, horn blast sounded behind them. Sort of like a tugboat, a little like a foghorn, but certainly loud and out of place on a tranquil, spring morning in South London. He and Rose turned, just in time to see a giant spacecraft whip over their heads, teetering erratically as it sped over them, towards the Thames River and the heart of London in the distance. They watched as it weaved around drunkenly, swirling from the Tower Bridge to St. Paul's Cathedral, till it clocked the side of Big Ben at Westminster and slammed unceremoniously down, landing in what the Doctor presumed was the river. The earth rumbled and the building they stood on shook as a black plume of smoke rose up into the gray skies in the distance.

He turned to look at Rose who stared back, eyes wide, frowning in utter annoyance.

"Oh, that's just not fair," she protested.

Clearly she wasn't the only one to know about aliens now.

"What is it?" She turned to him, the only alien she knew personally, to answer it.

"Don't know," he replied vaguely, trying to catalogue the various aspects of the ship that he noticed as it screamed overhead. "I'd have to get a closer look at it. The ship is common enough, sold all over the universe, could be any race. Sort of the Toyota of space ships."

"They have a Toyota of spaceships?"

"Why not, everyone needs a good, reliable one."

That seemed to make sense to Rose. "So, how will you be able to tell what sort of aliens it is?"

"Have to get a look."

"Like as not the police and the military will be all over it," Rose surmised, cutting a mischievous glance his way.

"Very true," he nodded sagely, watching the smoke rise in the distance. "So, means we'd have to hurry if we wanted to check it out."

"We?" She grinned, her smile wide as she arched a dark eyebrow at him. "So, you mean for me to go to?"

"Can't say you aren't as curious as I am, what with your, 'only one to see aliens' business."

"I am," she admitted, jutting her chin out towards the crash site in the distance, already being circled by helicopters, likely news ones for now till the military got their hands on it. "So how do we get there?"

"Best way I know how."

"How's that," she wondered brightly, already knowing his answer.

"We run!" He grabbed her fingers, holding them tight as he dragged her, screaming with laughter, towards the stairway door.


	14. Locked in a Cabinet

The first contact that this dumpy, little planet had to realize it was making was with the Slitheen family? Brilliant! Of all the races, all the peoples across the universe, Earth would be set on by some mercenary band of money-grubbing criminals. Ahh, just as well they didn't remember that nasty Vogon invasion of the 1970's. That had been a big enough mess, bureaucratic ingrates, but the Slitheen were merely out for fun and profit.

And worst of all, Rose Tyler was caught in the middle of it.

Not that she seemed to notice over much. She slouched in one of the important looking chairs around the large conference table, playing with a strand of fake blonde hair as she chatted with Harriet Jones. The world could possibly be ending at any moment, and there she was chatting up some random MP as if she could do nothing better right now. Which, if he admitted it to himself, there was nothing more she could do in this situation.

"So it's just you and your mother, then?" Harriet had that curious sympathy that humans seemed to employ when they knew a situation was sore subject but very much wanted to know more.

"Yeah, me and Mum." Rose nodded, frowning at the steel covered windows with vague worry. "She's out there right now with Mickey. I hope she gets someplace safe."

"And Mickey is your boyfriend?"

"Yeah…kind of." Rose eyes flickered nervously towards the Doctor as he pretended he hadn't noticed. "I've been gone for most of a year, traveling."

"Gap year," Harriet nodded in understanding."

"Yeah, something like that," Rose's nervous smile shifted as she changed subjects. "And you, have a husband back home wondering what's become of you?"

"Me, no!" She laughed, tight and bright, an old hurt underneath her self-effacing smile. "No, like you, just me and my mother. She's ill now, getting on in years. She's been staying with me the last few, just to have someone to look after her."

This piqued the Doctor's interest somewhat as he tried to glance sidelong at the other woman. He could see the tears just misting in the corner of her eyes, hear the tremor in her voice. "She's out there at home by herself. I hadn't even had a chance to call her to tell her what was going on. She doesn't even know I'm here."

Rose shifted from bored teen to sympathetic listener in the space of half-a-breath, concern and empathy writ across her pretty face as she reached a hand across to the other woman's arm. She had no words. What could one say in the face of likely death? But Harriet Jones seemed to take comfort in it as she patted the girl's hand gratefully.

"The worst part…the most frightening part in all of this isn't so much what will happen to me, but that she will be alone. There is no one else. They only had me, and Dad died years ago, and she's well up there. If I die, there's no one to take care of her."

It was a simple confession, and a very human one, but it still panged the Doctor to his hearts. There was this woman, this regular woman who had her job serving the people in her district, who just came to Downing Street to talk about some political nonsense that was important to her. And now she would die because of the actions of a mercenary bunch of profiteers, and her mother would never know the truth of how her daughter came to her end. That was, of course, if her mother and the rest of this planet lasted that long.

He personally wanted to see that it did.

"If you'd excuse me," Harriet rose preemptively, waiving a hand towards the closet in the corner, "I think there's a loo in here somewhere, I might go see if I can find it."

She didn't stop to reply to the Doctor's quizzical look as she wandered into the closet at the far end of the room.

"The loo's outside," the Doctor murmured after her, but the other woman didn't seem to pay any heed. Instead she marched in firmly and closed the door behind her.

"S'not why she's going in there," Rose replied, staring at him as if he was the daft one walking into closets thinking they were bathrooms.

"Then why would she lock herself in a closet?"

"Because it's the only place in this armored room where she can have a good cry away from two perfect strangers," Rose replied reasonably, frowning sympathetically at the closed door. "I understand it. Wish I could have one of those at the moment."

There she was, just a kid, drug into the insanity of his life. And he had gone along with it. She had angrily demanded that he not leave without her and he'd agreed to it, and now she was caught up in something that might just kill her. He shouldn't have gone back to Powell Estates, and he shouldn't have brought her with him.

As if sensing the line of his thoughts, her eyes narrowed suddenly, cutting at him, brown glitters of irritation shining through the thick make up coating her lashes. "You left me."

"When?" He feigned ignorance as he busied himself with his sonic screwdriver, pretending to do something extremely important.

"Back at the flat, you left me to go find your aliens." She crossed her arms in a clear signal she was preparing to battle with him on this and he really wished she wouldn't.

"Yep," he shrugged, trying to look supremely distant and impressive with his sonic and knowing he was somehow failing.

"What, after you promised and swore to me that you wouldn't just take off and leave me?"

"What, I popped in, popped back, simple as that. Besides you were busy with your…domestics."

"Domestics?" A dark eyebrow arched upwards, and he had the distinct impression of remembered pain across his cheek. She looked disturbingly like her mother when she did that.

"Yeah, well you had to deal with Mickey the Idiot, didn't you?"

Rose's eyes rolled as she snorted. "That doesn't mean you can swan off like that and just leave me behind."

"I don't know, you nearly got a man imprisoned for your death, I think he needs an explanation."

"I did no such thing," she seethed, throwing herself forward to lean against the table, inches from his face. "You are the great git that can't tell twelve hours from twelve months."

She did have a point there. "A years a long time to carry a murder suspicion, besides, you didn't miss much. Just a pig in a suit."

"That's not the point," she hissed, slamming back into her chair again, glaring moodily at the closet where Harriet Jones was currently crying in the dark. "The point is that you promised not to just leave without me. Now, be honest, if you knew what was going to happen here, what we were facing, would you have taken me with you?"

Taken here anywhere near this madness? No! Well…maybe. He glowered at her jutted jaw. "Is this really how you want to die then, locked up in a room, like Harriet, without the chance of seeing your mum one last time?"

"I'd rather do that than hide at home and wonder where the hell you are and why you didn't come for me."

That stung, and he didn't like it. "And what if I couldn't save you?"

Didn't he have enough blood on his hands? He didn't want her blood there as well.

"What did I tell you on the TARDIS when you tried to chuck me? After Gwyneth? I said I'm sticking around." Rose uttered this with all the false bravado a girl of nineteen who had never experienced death and dying would have. "And besides, not everything in this world is safe. If Mum has to cotton on to that eventually, so do you."

He wanted to believe her, this impossible girl, who thought she was indestructible. He wanted to think that indeed, she was indestructible as she thought she was, and that he wouldn't stand there and watch her die because of something he did. More than anything, he realized in that moment, he wanted to keep this strange girl safe. Perhaps it was for her mother, or her boyfriend, but really, he wanted to keep her safe for him. And he didn't quite understand what that meant yet or why.

Instead, he decided to change the subject.

"You think she'll come out of the closet sometime soon?"

"I hope so," Rose murmured softly, glancing at the still closed door. "You know, I told Mickey you'd come back."

"What?"

"When you left, Mickey told me, and I told him you'd come back."

"You were just yelling at me for leaving you," he protested indignantly.

"Yeah, well," she shrugged, looking mildly abashed. "Didn't mean that I didn't think you wouldn't come back. Cause you promised you wouldn't leave me."

Honestly, all this fuss, just to prove a point. "Is this what traveling with you will always be like, you whinging on something just to prove a point?"

"If we live, maybe you'll find out."

There was that if. She was by far not the first of his companions who had been in danger. But just like with all the others, he very much hoped that "if" would end up on the positive column for him today and that fate would be kind to him once again.


	15. And Miles To Go Before I Sleep

Bad Wolf.

More worrisome than the fact that some snot-nosed, skateboarding urchin with a spray can had managed to gain access to his ship enough to write the words in paint across her lovely blue side, was the fact that he had to choose those words. Bad Wolf. The words he had first heard echoing through space and time the moment he had taken Rose Tyler's hand. Why those words? Why in her home? Why did they link to her?

Worse…why was this slip of a girl taking over his ship?

Rose had returned from her mother's flat, a backpack over her shoulders that looked as if carried all the means needed by a Roman centurion. He had glanced at it askance that any one, human girl could need that many things on a trip. Besides, didn't the likes of Rose enjoy going shopping? But she had bored him with talk of her girlie shampoos and the particular kind of pajamas she preferred to wear, and he had borne it long enough for him to show her to her room. The TARDIS of course had whipped it up, seemed the old girl had a fondness for their most current companion, as she made it pink and purple and feminine. The Doctor had quickly retreated, allowing Rose to settle in with all of the glee of a first year moving into her dorm at uni.

Then had come the mug in the sink. Honestly, she had barely finished putting glitter all over her room, or whatever she was doing in there, and he had gone in for a cuppa, and found a worn, chipped mug with some sort of child's handwriting all over it. She had wandered in, all big eyes and excitement at having found the swimming pool, and he held it up in front of her nonplussed expression. It was her favorite mug, she replied, something she had made at some art thing years ago, something to remind her of home.

Except this wasn't her home, or anyone's home. Well, it was his home. But it wasn't for her domestics. Still, he had said nothing as she had prowled the innards of his ship. Who cared if she left puddles by the swimming pool, or dripped through the corridors towards the tea garden, or left feet marks at the top of the zero gravity chamber. He simply gritted his teeth and let her have at it.

He finally found his wayward charge, curled up in the comfy jimjams she liked, snoozing in the library in front of a fire, a copy of _Oliver Twist _in hand. Perhaps, not that he would ever admit it out loud the scene did make him smile…just a bit. He hated to think how long it had been since he had someone so young and eager on board the ship. Perhaps it had been too long.

It had also been far too long since his said human companion had slept properly. Judging by her relative time, she'd been up for nearly three days. While adrenaline and excitement could keep anyone going, Rose still was just human, and so he let her sleep, pulling a warm, woolen blanket off the back of the couch and tucking her in for the time being.

Oh, to sleep the sleep of the young and exhausted.

He sighed as he settled in an armchair nearby, staring into the flickering flames as he considered his new situation. It had been some time since he had any companion on the ship. Since before the Time War, and it had been since Ace had had someone so young. Another girl from the estates, though admittedly Rose seemed far less broken, a tribute to Jackie's parenting though he'd never admit it to the woman's face. What to do with a companion so young and energetic? He wondered if he knew what to do anymore. Old and broken he was, a veteran of far too many battles, filled with enough rage and anger he could choke on it. What could the universe possibly hold that would fascinate him anymore?

Of course, the universe would be endlessly fascinating to her. He glanced at the girl sleeping, and recalled the delight she took in opening the TARDIS doors on different places and different times. How easy it had been to seduce her away from her mother's Shepherd's Pie with visions of foreign planets and times, to spin fantasies of stardust and moonbeams. He had done it on purpose, of course, mostly to get out of Jackie Tyler's cooking, but because he also knew it would work. He should feel guilty about it.

He didn't.

Because, if he admitted it to himself, and he hated to do that, he wanted her to be there…he needed her there. Like a man thirsting in the desert, he needed the life, excitement, and vitality Rose brought with her, the optimism with which she faced every adventure. Hell, he needed the courage she displayed in the face of certain death and danger, that willingness to stand her ground when every fiber in his being wanted to run. Everything he thought he had lost so long ago seemed to be wrapped up in one, fragile, human girl. He had wondered if the universe were playing a grand joke on him when he met Rose, now he was convinced of it. Can't let the angry, lonely, broken old man fade quietly into the sunset, no! Send a woman, an impossibly tempting woman, into his life and try to stir things up.

Bugger it all, now he was going to have to keep on going on.

Well, it was his own fault, he supposed, he was the one who had taken the girl's hand and drug her along for this joy ride, and then had convinced her to keep going. And he would show her all the marvelous things he had promised her and more, and hopefully, maybe, if he were very lucky, he could remember how he had felt once upon a time, when the entire universe was new, and he had fallen in love with it. And he would try his damndest to keep her safe, for her mother if nothing else, and someday, when she was old and gray, she would remember a funny looking old man with big ears and a broken soul, who showed her the universe. He simply hoped that when the time came he could let her go with as much grace and dignity as he believed he could right at this moment.

Till then, she slept. Pity, that, so many things to see and do, and she had to fall asleep on him. Well, he supposed, it wasn't unusual for humans to sleep half their lives away. Still, so much to do, so many things to visit, places he hadn't seen since before the war, and he couldn't wait to show her once she woke. Sighing, he reached for the copy of _Oliver Twist _nearly falling from limp fingers and flipped it open. He might as well read while he waited for her to rouse. It would be a long time till he could allow himself the luxury of dreams.


	16. Oh The Places You Will Go

Oh the places they did go…first to Sonorus XII, a planet where the natural cave features of the topography amplified the pitches of nature to create a virtual symphony of creation that drew in artists and musicians from all over the galaxy. Then to Persephone, a human colony in the far distant future, where half the world was in light and half in shadow at any one given point in the year. He took her to a planet that was made up of gaseous clouds so thick and dense, that one could bounce on them, like a playhouse, and to the Horsehead Nebula to see the plasma storm he had promised. With all the joy and exuberance that seemed to be Rose, she embraced each and every one of these adventures, her eyes sparkling, her tongue caught in a smile that reached from ear to ear, barely waiting for him to follow her out of the door and recite his usual speech on the most important tidbits and warn her not to do something supremely stupid and embarrass him.

Not that Rose tried to, but the girl was a magnet for trouble in a way that baffled even him. Perhaps it was the friendly, outgoing nature, the way she had in engaging even the strangest looking creatures. Rose rarely thought about the dangerous of what was out there, and admittedly he hated to tell her too much. Might take away from the fun. Still, even he grew exasperated after the third time he had to rescue her from some enraptured young, and usually intoxicated, young man whose sights were set on the pretty Earth girl who chatted him up.

"Always you and the pretty ones," he growled, hustling her out of a 47th century bar at a tropical resort where fairly soon the police would be called in on a bar fight he had no wish to be a part of. The fact that the fight was more a distraction engineered by him as a way of prying his companion away from a very aggressive and rich playboy named Fernando perhaps might have had something to do with his desire to put distance between the neon lit beach club and Rose.

"I don't do it on purpose," she retorted, rolling her eyes and snorting at his annoyed glare. "You were the one who said that this place had the best mojitos in the universe and you brought me here."

"Yes, to drink, not to get cozy with the locals." He ripped his key from out of his pocket, jamming it into the lock of the TARDIS. His ship hummed in satisfaction as lights came up and he wandered towards the console, Rose cheerfully skipping in behind him.

"That's the fun in all of this, isn't it, getting to know the people and try all the different things? That's what you told me, least ways." She flopped on the jump seat, crossing jean-clad legs as she stared up at him. "Don't you do the same thing?"

He frowned at her from the other side of the console, before pretending to busy himself with a squeaky duck that supposedly function as a dial, but in reality was there because he found it amusing. "I go to these places to learn about their culture."

"Yeah, and how can you learn the culture if you don't interact with the people in it?"

"Cheeky, you," he grumbled at her triumphant smile, glaring at the rubber toy and setting it aside. "I've had plenty of interactions, thank you very much."

"Really?" A dark eyebrow quirked, and he knew he had wandered into dangerous territory. He had opened a crack, a hint into that sacred area of which he didn't speak…his past. And Rose Tyler, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, was going to try and force herself in.

"Sure, everyone has their lurid stories of their youth." He shrugged, his shoulders rising and falling in his black leather, hoping that would be the end of it. Foolish, idiotic old man…

"So what are some of yours?"

"Nine hundred years and you think I remember them all?"

"Nine hundred years is a long time to collect stories about stupid things you've done." Rose leaned her elbows on her knees, watching him eagerly. "Come on, then! No drunken uni stories? No mornings waking up beside someone whose name you don't remember in some horribly compromising position."

His only response was to glare at her evenly across the console. It only served to make her laugh at him.

"Don't you ever regret anything about your past?"

So much…so very, very much…

"A few things," he replied shortly, clicking at buttons and studying coordinates on the screen in front of him.

Rose watched him carefully for long moments. The humor died as she sensed the painful tenderness of the subject with him.

"Why is it so hard to talk about your past?"

The "whys" could fill a book, a library full of books. He felt irritated, angry all the sudden that this girl would so persist on wanting to know about things that didn't matter anymore. Couldn't humans leave well enough alone?

He decided to use evasion as his best course of defense. "Why do you hate talking about yours?"

She saw through that, judging from the glare she shot back at him. "Because some of it is painful."

"Precisely," he replied, his words razor sharp as the cut between then. "Some things hurt."

"But not everything, right?" There was a hint of sadness there, of compassion, of aching pain for a man that she by all rights barely knew.

"No," he sighed, his chest tightening as he considered, shaking his head heavily. "Not all of it hurts."

"Perhaps, then, you could share the bits that don't as much," she offered reasonably. And he wished that it were as simple for him as it was for her and her existence. "Like, have you ever been in love?"

"Sure. Many times." A nice, bland answer to a question much more nuanced in its meaning that he was taking it. He had loved many people in many ways over the years. He wasn't technically lying.

"Have you ever been utterly pissed?" The grin slowly returned, a sparkle of playful curiosity in her eyes.

"Well, Time Lords, it's hard to get drunk. But there was one time when I did drink George, Prince of Wales under the table."

He could see Rose's delighted mind quickly calculate just how many monarchs that was back. "You mean the one who was made a regent?"

"The future George IV himself. He was found under that same table by his servants hours later in the company of no less than three ladies of ill repute, and the wife of one of the more prominent nobles in the House of Lords."

"Sounds like a hell of a party," Rose giggled. "And where were you in all of this?"

"Sleeping on the only comfortable spot in the entire place, a silk cushion next to the piano, wondering why my mouth tasted as if I had swallowed a feather duster."

"Brilliant," she chortled, clapping hands in obvious entertainment. "Doesn't it taste awful that next morning?"

"You'd think for the price of the fine, French wine we'd been drinking, it wouldn't have." He neglected to tell her that he'd practically emptied the then Prince of Wales' larder of all the expensive wine he had and most of the rest of his stores as well to even get to that level of intoxication. "Still, it made for a hell of a bachelor party."

"See, was that so bad," Rose asked, wiping at mirthful tears. The Doctor only shrugged in response. Perhaps it wasn't. But that story was a safe one, a throwaway that he could toss out on the waves and let her nibble at.

"Bet old King George regretted that one," Rose snickered to herself despite his brooding.

"I think he regretted Caroline more."

"We all have the bad relationship we wish we never got into," Rose replied sagely. "Those regrets of things we wish we could change or take back. I mean, even kings, right?" She picked at a nail as she considered. "I mean I lived with Jimmy Stone, great git. Eight hundred quid in the hole while he took off to Amsterdam to get stoned and find himself."

"Sounds like what all musicians do," the Doctor shot back, wondering what in the world a girl as intelligent as Rose saw in some sniveling dolt.

"Well, I always was an idiot for someone I thought was brilliant with a pretty face." Rose shrugged in that casual way people had when they realized their faults but weren't particularly sorry about them. "I don't know, don't you have those things in your past that you regret? Those moments when you wish you could just…I don't know, take the TARDIS back and change how things were?"

Those moments? Try hundreds of them. If only he could go back, when the Moment was in hand, or further back still, to that first meeting he had with Davros so long ago, the one where he realized that the scientist was both brilliant and insane. If he had just made that decision back then to do what he could have done and brought and end to it all. He had been noble then, or so he had told Sarah and Harry. But now he had to wonder, was it truly noble, or was it simply his pride speaking, his arrogance at believing he was so much better than Davros?

"Sure," he replied, short and to the point. "But there's no point in doing that, now is there?"

She blinked curiously at him, as if his answer surprised her. "You mean you've never gone and done it."

"Done what," he asked, playing at being obtuse as he punched in numbers into his touch screen.

"Gone back and changed things because you've regretted them?"

"And why would I do that?" He couldn't help it, sounding as if it were perhaps the most incredibly thick thing he'd ever heard. Which in fact it was.

"Because if you did, you could fix your mistakes."

"And if I did, I could tear the universe into pieces, that's what," he snapped, glaring at her. "Certain things are fixed points in the continuum, you can't alter them no matter how you wish you might. To do so would….tear everything apart."

"You mean, like if I went back in time and accidentally killed my own grandfather, I might never exist?"

"Mere child's play compared to that old, worn out line, but yeah, same idea." He set the course into the TARDIS's computer and sent her careening through the vortex before turning to lean his back against the console, regarding the wide-eyed girl in front of him. "Only it's not just one thing, it's a hundred little things. You kill your grandfather, and your grandmother never has your mother or father. Everything your grandfather did, every person who ever had contact with him, every event that centered on your grandfather will never happen now because they are gone. The entire world changes, a ripple effect in space, causing it to convulse and rip, tear and shred."

Rose's thick lashes blinked up at him, horrified and intrigued by the idea. "And then what happens?"

The Doctor shrugged, considering the various possibilities. "Well, it's a paradox, which in and of itself tends to make reality fray and tear. Best-case scenario, lower level life forms in certain areas are destroyed, while higher mental forms can perhaps escape the carnage on a different plane. But in reality, what will likely happen is that everyone and everything you know will snap out of existence as the universe is eaten away, bit by bit."

It was clear that whatever the possibilities of time travel were to her, Rose had never considered that. Honey brown eyes were wide in her face. "That's horrible."

"That's time travel." He shrugged, considering. "Time Lords of course are trained against such things in the Academy. And the TARDIS, she does a lot to help." He patted the side of the console with affection. "Because she exists in all times and every time, she also can avoid those things that would cause a paradox. Of course, there are things that happen that even she can't foresee, or risks that are taken, but I'm smart enough to get us out of those."

"And so modest, too," she smirked, rolling her eyes.

"It's not bragging when it's the truth."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the TARDIS gave a lurch that sent Rose nearly sprawling straight into his chest. He grabbed the console for support, frowning as he turned around towards the touch screen, reading the numbers and Gallifreyan letters as they spat out, trying to make sense of what was going on.

"Everything all right?" Rose eyed the now steady TARDIS warily. The ship had smoothed itself out, but wasn't going in the direction he had sent it.

"Fine," he replied, lying through his teeth. "What's up, old girl, eh? What's got you going somewhere else?"

"We've stopped." Rose eyed the Time Rotor as it began to slow, the sure sign that they had dematerialized somewhere. His read out stated it was Earth, the year 2012, not far in Rose's future. They were somewhere in the middle of Utah in the American West. He hoped it wasn't Area 51 again. That had been a hell of a mess to find himself in, and he had no desire to run away from early, twenty-first century American military types with a stick shoved firmly up their arse.

"Can we go and check it out?"

The eager light in her eyes, the thirst for adventure, the Doctor knew he should say no and caution her until he figured out what was going on. But the minute she peeked curiously at the camera feed outside of the TARDIS doors, he knew he was going to give her exactly what she wanted.

"Fine, but no running off and flirting with pretty boys this time. I don't want us to get arrested again."

"You act as if I go about trying to cause these incidents," she protested mildly, even as she was nearly out of the door.

"Trouble finds you like a magnet, Rose Tyler," he called. He wondered vaguely what trouble she would cause him on this adventure.


	17. Beware the Jabberwock

He always walked into these things so full of himself.

When the door clanged shut he had been certain. It was some poor, hapless creature, like him, likely misunderstood by a fool of a human who didn't know and didn't care what he was getting into. Could be hurt, likely traumatized, whatever it was, he was damn certain he wasn't going to let Van Statten keep it as his private, whipping toy. So there he was, the Doctor, so sure of the universe and how it worked, that he was in absolute control of the situation.

Until he said his name…and that unmistakable voice rose in its electronic madness and shattered his certainty forever.

The instinct to run had been natural. The cries of "exterminate" still rang through his subconscious, generating fright and flight like nothing in the universe could. The great and powerful Time Lord, reduced to panic and fear. And why not? That was the cold, synthesized voice he had heard for centuries, chasing him through cities, planets. He had heard it under the shrieks and screams of innocents who had died at the hands of Daleks hordes, the smell of flesh burning and stink of ozone still fresh in his nostrils. For all of the amazing intellect and insight, for all that he could feel time and space running through his body, see it swirl around him, for all that he thought he was some sort of hero, in the face of a Dalek, even a chained one, he was nothing more than a quivering coward.

He didn't even realize he was pounding on the door till he heard his own voice ringing back desperately in his ears. This was how he was to end? After all this, after everything he went through, to be surprised, one last time, one singular survivor tracking him down to exact his punishment.

And then nothing happened.

The Doctor couldn't be sure who was more surprised by this, himself or the Dalek, sitting as it was struggling in its bonds. It's laser twitched fretfully as the creature puzzled over why every instinct in its body couldn't seem to make the weapons in its armor to work. And he stared, wide eyed, wondering at this thing, this nightmare in brass colored armor, and why it didn't kill him.

And he laughed.

Partly it was because of the utter ridiculousness of the situation. There was something comical about an impotent Dalek, staring at his laser arm in dismay and confusion, unable to do the one thing that Dalek's always seemed to want to do. But the rest of his laughter, the sad, hysterical edge that seeped out, was merely because of the irony of it all. Of course, he would have had to kill the Daleks, all of them, save one. He had sacrificed his planet, his people, to wipe them out of the universe, and one, broken survivor had to find its way there. Just as he had, he supposed. The pair of them, the shattered remains of a Time War that had ended long ago, but still seemed to rage on and on and on.

The sheer infinity of it all was what broke him finally, as he stared into the optic lens. And suddenly he wasn't the kind and gentle Doctor, the man there to help a poor, tortured creature. He was something else, something darker, something angrier. All the fear and anguish and loathing, everything he had regenerated feeling since that horrible moment so long ago, resurfaced as he looked into the empty optic lens. He knew what was in there, he knew it was fully aware of who he was, and he felt all the fury that had curdled and festered inside of burst free at that moment. Mercy was not something he knew. He was a vengeful god, the last of his kind, with nothing to stop him.

He was the Oncoming Storm.

And he spewed his wrath on the creature, weakened and broken, and he delighted in it. The barely scabbed over wounds opened, spilling bile and venom on his enemy, and he danced on the graves of his own people as he proudly proclaimed that it was he who destroyed the Daleks, that he made it happen, that he had exacted vengeance on all of them. He stopped his ears to its pleas for pity. He ignored its pathetic need for mercy and clemency as he pulled the switch, fully prepared to do unto it as it had done unto so many others.

He could terminate this all right now. Destroy this creature before it could do any more harm. End the Time War right now. Perhaps it was murder, and who cared? The Daleks had murdered millions, billions, entire races without a second thought, erasing them from history as if they were mere specks. What was one, lone, defenseless survivor in comparison to the countless numbers obliterated in Dalek extermination programs?

Besides, who was there to stop him? Certainly not his people anymore. He was a Time Lord, the last of them. And he could do whatever he wished about it.

And so he did.

At least until he was pulled away, rough hands jerking him up the ramp, slamming him away from the electrical source and the screaming, dying creature. Humans, what did they know? They had not even noticed Daleks yet. Their race at this time was oblivious. Current humans were spared the horror, the carnage, and the knowledge of what the Daleks could do. All Van Statten saw when he stared into the metal casing chained to his wall was profit. So much profit…

He didn't understand that waiting there was death.

And then the man turned to him, speculation bright in beady eyes. And whatever the Doctor had to say about danger and destruction was lost as it occurred to the man that the Doctor wasn't exactly human either. Somewhere in his ranting and raving, he had mentioned out loud in front of everyone that he was a Time Lord. And Van Statten smiled slowly at him.

And the Oncoming Storm was suddenly very afraid.


	18. The Enemy of my Enemy

AN: Just a note to the Guest in Chapter 4 who was picky on grammar, (and I am not saying you were incorrect here), "drug" is a colloquialism, a "dialect" habit of Americans particularly in the South and Midwest, of which I happen to be a member. Well, used to be at least, because I now live in Southern California. Thank you for pointing it out, as similar to "lay/lie", that is tricky for folk. Also, as a point, I tend to delete Guest accounts, so in future if you can at least leave a name, that would be appreciated.

* * *

When the madness and frantic fear ebbed, only the annoyed and tired Time Lord remained. And that was something that Henry Van Statten was extremely intrigued by, the creature that sat right in front of him, and how he wasn't exactly human.

"What are Time Lords?" Van Statten smugly mused, watching the Doctor as if he were a particularly amusing monkey at the zoo. He should talk, if there was ever a more stupid ape in the universe, it was the man leering at him at that moment, sizing him up as like the Mona Lisa in his personal, vanity collection of oddities. And perhaps the Doctor was. Well, he and one of the last remnants of one of his greatest enemies.

"What does it say on the tin," he shot back, irritably. Adrenaline still hummed inside, setting his nerves on edge. And he had no desire to be sitting here, putting up with this petty, small man.

If Van Statten was offended, he didn't show it. His ego was thick enough it probably didn't register. "So I'm supposed to take it you're a lord of time then?"

"Something like that," he snapped, already tired of where this was going, and he did know where it was going. He only hoped Van Statten had something more high tech in his menagerie of alien toys than a scalpel and an X-ray machine. The last time someone had tried to mess around medically with his body had not gone well and it had taken him hours to regenerate.

"So what, you can manipulate time? Play with it? What does it mean?" Van Statten paced the narrow confines of the metal encased examination room. The doors were sealed with three-inch thick steel doors; bookcased by two, burley men in Kevlar and scowls. Evidently they made Van Statten feel safe. Of course, he had no idea the destructive potential of the creature downstairs in his personal dungeon. And yet, he could sit there and profile him, the Doctor?

What the hell? If it shut the idiot up and made him see reason. He sat on a low bench across from Van Statten's curious, beady eyes, shrugging his leather-clad shoulders in supreme nonchalance. "My people could see time."

"What, like, they could just know what time it was?'

"Yeah," he sneered, earning a spark of ire from the imbecilic, little man.

"Then why do you wear a wrist watch?" His smirking gaze fell to the one on the Doctor's wrist.

"I like the irony of it."

"Right," Van Statten smiled, a cold, fake lifting up lips under his mustache. "So you see time? What does it look like?"

Really? This man wanted parlor tricks? A Dalek was just feet below him, close enough through the concrete and armor that it made his skin itch and his senses scream in his ears, and this man wanted a dog and pony show?

Despite his better judgment he quietly closed his eyes, wrapping himself in that old familiar warmth of time, the golden glow that danced and spun around him and through him, slowing his hearts, slowing his breathing, slowing the movements in the room and the rushing of the blood in the veins of the humans around him. Everything slowed until it just…stopped.

"Right now, I know that you are forty-years-old," he intoned. "More precisely, you are forty years, eight months, three weeks, twelve hours, twenty five minutes, and six seconds old. You have had many branches and paths in your life that you could have gone on. Had you braked four seconds later on your bike when you were twelve, you would be dead rather than having a nasty scar on your knee. If you had waited twenty minutes and thirteen seconds on your best friend when you were fourteen you'd have never won the science competition that got you noticed, though it lost you the friendship of the person you were closest to. You have lived a life full of decisiveness, you've never stood at crossroads long enough to consider, leaving off other branches and paths of time. Consequently there are few things you truly regret, except that one romance when you were twenty three years, four months, and nine days, but you know there always those little people who get lost on the way up to the top, right?"

He opens his eyes, his mouth lifting in a smirk at the man across the way.

Van Statten hardly seemed impressed. "That's all? That's it?"

"What, did you think I could click rewind on life with the snap of my fingers?" The Doctor snorted, rolling his eyes. "Really, the things people need to be impressed."

"Any of that can easily be found on the internet, especially by someone trying to steal my things."

"Because you have such an impressive collection of junk," the Doctor bit back, now irate at this small man and the power he thought he wielded. "You asked me to see time, and so I did. What do you want, a ticker tape parade?"

"Perhaps a recitation of something other than my Facebook profile."

"A man like you doesn't have a Facebook profile, at least not a real one." The Doctor grated out, already sick of this man after his brush with the Dalek this fool insisted on protecting. "Fine, you want to see what I can do? I know that when you took your first company public, you lied about the program software that you were developing in order to increase your profitability."

That surprised Van Statten. His lazy frown turned cold as it became clear that wasn't something that the Doctor could just Google. "Right. So who's been talking about that one?"

The Doctor snorted, rolling his eyes. "Really, you have a living Dalek in your building, and you are worried someone's been telling tales? No one has. The one person who knew you had conveniently killed for it a few years later. Oh, it wasn't a real murder, you just made sure that his heart medication got lost in the mail while he was vacationing in the Bahamas and he got a distressing email from his favorite call girl that sent him into cardiac arrest."

Van Statten almost laughed at that, but he didn't deny it. "My work has been above board. Who are you to question it?"

"The Doctor," he said simply. "And I know that had you been honest about that software glitch, your company would have indeed taken a temporary hit, but your honesty would have won you respect and admiration in the industry. You'd have been named a businessman of vision, of compassion, business schools would have been lined up to have you speak there about honesty in the twenty-first century marketplace."

Not totally unexpectedly, Van Statten seemed amused by this notion. "Be a man of the people or a man of greatness? Really, Doctor?" He rolled the name around his mouth with a sense of dubious amusement. "What do you think any man…well, any human would honestly choose?"

Stupid, ignorant ape….

"I'd hope," he muttered in quiet disgust. "I'd hope they would realize that greatness comes from being one of the people, by not thinking themselves above them or apart. But then, you wouldn't know anything about that…not the greatness part."

The air in the room was cool as they stared at each other across the small expanse. It was Van Statten who rose first, crossing his arms as he looked down on the Doctor critically, as if sizing him up for a Plexiglas's case with laser security.

"Tell me, Doctor," he finally hummed. "You said down there that you destroyed these Daleks. You ended their lives. What do you know about the sort of greatness that you speak off, this altruism you are preaching about, hmmm?"

Van Statten was an idiot, but he was a cruel and perceptive one. The Doctor didn't flinch, didn't blink, he wouldn't give the foolish man the satisfaction.

"Take him downstairs to medical, I want to use our new scanning, laser device on him. See how it works on him." Van Statten jerked his head towards the two thugs at his door, each crossing to take an arm as the pulled him roughly up. The Doctor didn't fight them, not for this.

"You don't know what you are getting into with that creature, Van Statten. It isn't a person, it has no feelings, and it certainly doesn't care about you."

"So says a man who admits to committing genocide on an entire race," Van Statten shot back as he was led out the door. "For all your talk, Doctor, I have to wonder if you even have a heart."

He didn't know the half of it, the Doctor thought bitterly, as he was shuffled through the clinical neatness of the hallway by thick and determined hands.


End file.
